Mah Jongg in Days of Yore

I have been playing American Mah Jongg over 30 years. I have my cards from all those years, although they are scattered around the house. I don’t think I could find them all easily. Apparently they might be worth something on the secondary market.

One of my darling students, Suzanne of Tallahassee likes finding friend’s birth year mah Jongg cards. She found the 1960-61 card along with 62, 63, and 64. And she sent them to me as a gift.

I was struck by how small they were. The ‘60-‘61 card cost .30¢. The first thing I noticed is that it used way too many flowers and hardly any winds. Then I read that the game used 14 flowers and 2 Big Jokers. They used stickers to change two of the flowers into jokers. There were also no hands of the year. I can imagine the frustration that came from playing that year.

So much of Mah Jongg hands have remained the same. The biggest change is we play with 8 flowers and 8 jokers. Now people of all ages are playing the game, probably not the same as 1960-61.

Thanks Suzanne for the wonderful gift. I can’t wait to study all these cards and see how many hands I recognize. This might encourage me to search for all my old cards and visit favorite old hands.