Celebrating 2019 with A Fully Carved Ivory Set

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Fully carved sets are rare, as are ivory ones, so it was amazing to get an email about one. The owners were curious about it. Their set is a true Mahjong Treasure, and I am delighted to share the images with you. We'll start with the box.

It's made of pigskin, painted in red and gold and embossed. Note there's a keyhole for a lock toward the top of the front.

People who have tiles that are a combination of a white material and bamboo often think their sets are made of ivory and bamboo, but usually their sets are bone and bamboo. This set is pure ivory. You can see the criss-cross chevron pattern, known as Schreger lines, on the top two tiles.

 

We'll go to the One Dot, the inspiration for the Joker pattern of many of the newer sets. Here the Dragon is pretty easy to decipher, although he is way too big to be entirely on the tile. He's curled up, and we see three parts of his body. If you think of the circle as a clock face, his head is in the center of the tile, his neck at 4:00, the middle part of his body (upside down) from 11:00 until 1:00, and his tail at 8:00. Fabulous!

 

Now we will see how the craftsmen designed all the suits.

The One Bam is a hawk on a globe, a symbol of Chinese military strength. I love that MJ is carved into the tile. The other Bams are bamboo shoots. Dots 2-9 are lovely delicate flower heads. The Craks are floral garlands. But look at the Chinese numbers on the Craks. Those of you with sharp eyes, or those of you lucky enough to own Dee Gallo's Money Set, will notice the numbers are not those we normally see on tiles. Instead they are the ones used in Chinese banking: the numbers are different so as to make it more difficult to change a number into a higher one. Think about Arabic numbers-it's pretty easy to change a 1 into a 7; the Chinese banking numerals made altering numbers impossible.

The other numbered tiles continue with the same patterns.

Onto the Winds, Dragons and Flowers. The Winds, normally quite dull in appearance (except in a Dee Gallo set) are garlands with different squash. In Chinese culture, squash or gourds are symbols of wishes for lots of children, because they have so many seeds in them. And I think the garlands are really vines. (per Primal Trek)

From Primal Trek http://primaltrek.com/gourd.html

The Chinese language has a large number of written characters but a smaller number of spoken sounds so many Chinese characters share the same or similar pronunciation (please see Hidden Meaning of Symbols).  The Chinese have a strong propensity to associate similar sounding words. For example, trailing gourd vines are described in Chinese as man (蔓}. This same character can also be pronounced as wan and has the exact same pronunciation and meaning as 万 which means "10,000".  Because the gourd contains many seeds, the Chinese associate the gourd with "10,000 children".  In ancient China, parents hoped for many sons and grandsons so the gourd became an important charm symbol for a large family with many children.

We have a Dragon with the Red Chung symbol (The Chung represents China, as does the Dragon) and the Phoenix with the Green Dragon. (When the Dragon and Phoenix are paired together, the Phoenix represents the Empress. ) The White Dragon is the abstract frame we often see on newer tiles. And of course we have the always delightful children at play, this time some are playing with firecrackers. You will see the #1 tile at the bottom shows a boy holding his ears: he does not want to hear the explosion!

Thanks to Ray Heaton, we have a translation of the characters on the Flower tiles:

皆大歡喜, jiēdàhuānxǐ, to everyone's delight and satisfaction.
逍遙快樂, xiāoyáo kuàilè, unconstrained happiness.

 

The full set, in all its glory.

From the owner of the set:

I have a vintage Mah Jong set brought from China by my grandmother who was in Shanghai with the U.S. Navy in 1936. She enjoyed Mah Jong very much and had three sets when she died, but this one, an ivory set in a beautiful decorated pigskin box, I kept. The tiles are 1' 3/16 x 7/8" x1/2".
I have ascertained the tiles are ivory, not bakelite or any other substance by examining them with a 10 power lens and comparing them to the photos of ivory that you placed on your web page.
In thinking more about it, my father was about 5 years old when he was in China, because he talked about his mischievously pushing his "Ama" (nurse) over very easily as she had bound feet. That would put the family there in 1928 which I think is a logical date for acquiring the set.
The other thing is that the Flowers, or as my grandmother called them "Pretties", are a set showing a boy lighting doing all sorts of play things, such as lighting firecrackers, standing on his hands or playing an instrument. 
A later email: 
But I am extraordinarily pleased to discover that it is such a superb example of Mahjong sets, and possibly one of a kind. My grandmother shipped it out to me when I was first married in 1965, along with some oriental carpets and a Chinese pillow box that had been presented to my grandfather by a "mandarin". U.S. Military men were held in high esteem back in the 1920's and it is possible that the ivory set was a gift to him as well. I think it is interesting that the chest/container is relatively unremarkable, and I wonder if that was to "hide" the ivory so that it was not so tempting to steal. Just speculation on my part. 
I think its interesting the box has a real lock on it. (There were many ways to secure mahjong boxes to try to keep their contents safe. Opening panels with tricky ways to open them were all the rage.) Thieves could just have been picked up the box and stolen it, so the lock was probably just to keep people from opening it and taking out pieces to play with, perhaps losing them.
I think I "speak" for all of us with a big thanks to this reader. What a beautiful way to start the new year.
Here are a few additional images of the box, and the dice holder which reminds me of one of those  chops used to stamp characters at the bottom of documents or letters.

7 thoughts on “Celebrating 2019 with A Fully Carved Ivory Set”

  1. Allan

    One of the most beautiful sets I have seen. Only the third set of bankers numbers on the craks in my experience. A total mahjong wonder.

  2. Ray

    Great set, thought you might like to know the words on the tiles showing the children playing...

    皆大歡喜, jiēdàhuānxǐ, to everyone's delight and satisfaction

    逍遙快樂, xiāoyáo kuàilè, unconstrained happiness

  3. Maryanne

    A delightful experience to read about this fabulous it. Thank you for sharing pictures and knowledge

  5. Tony

    Gregg, you came up trumps here! What a great set - especially unusual are the Winds and Dragons - it's interesting to see that the Dragon and Phoenix are the focus of the tiles, rather than the sinogram, so they must have been designed like that, rather the embellishing an existing rather plain set.
    The box is very unusual too, do you have more images of the top and sides?

  7. Tony

    Wow! Not often you see a set as good as this!
    I especially love the carving around the winds, and the way that the Dragon and Phoenix are the man focus of the tiles, with the sinogram offset, so they were designed like that, not as an afterthought. We've seen the kids playing before, but these are wonderfully executed, with real life, vigour and artistry to them.
    The box deserves a mention; it's very rare to see a leather box of this style, particularly with the embossed scenes - LOVE!
    A wonderful set, and the owner is justifiably proud to own it!

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