Accession No
4553
Brief Description
electrical mah jong set, comprising 144 + 4 cards, in box, with instructions, all contained in cardboard case, by Thomas de la Rue & Company for Western Electricity Company, English, 1925
Origin
England; London
Maker
Thomas de la Rue and Company
Class
electrical; ephemera; games
Earliest Date
1924
Latest Date
1924
Inscription Date
1924
Material
paper (paper, cardboard, card); cloth
Dimensions
Case 195 x 123 x 26; Box 180 x 120 x 23 mm; Cards 82 x 51 mm
Special Collection
Provenance
Purchased from Tesseract, New York, on 09/07/1996.
Inscription
Electrical Mah Jong manufactured for the Western Electricity Co., Ltd. by Thomas de la Rue & Co., London. E.C.1. Price 7/- nett. (Box)
Description Notes
Outer cardboard case shows wear, carries the name James and a drawing on the underside. Box, card partially covered in cloth in good condition, with only light wear to edges. Instruction Booklet: The Pocket Guide to Electrical Mah Jong, 12pp also contains advertisements for Western Electricity products. Complete set of Cards electrically themed: Western electric telephones, radios, cables, plus seasonal winds. Four blank cards labelled “ether”. Reverse of cards labelled “1924 British Empire Exhibition Souvenir Western Electric Makers of Over Half the World’s Telephones”.
References
Events
Description
This game is a souvenir from the British Empire Exhibition held in Wembley, London, in 1924. The cards are based on the Chinese game of mahjong, which became vastly popular in America and Europe in the 1920s when it was first introduced.
There are three suits: Radios, Cables and Phones, replacing the bamboos, circles and characters of a traditional mahjong set. The cards advertise the Western Electric Company, which manufactured telephone and wireless apparatus.
FM:39502
Images (Click to view full size):
