Mahjong CompendiumRegional US house rules

Proto-mahjong › Chinese classical › Babcock rules › Regional US house rules

Regional US house rules

1920s-30s

Sources

Sources

The documents this entry rests on, as published. Each can be opened and checked; nothing in this part is anybody’s reading of them.

  1. Official rules Babcock, J. P. Babcock's Rules for Mah-Jongg: The Red Book of Rules. Second edition, revised and enlarged. San Francisco: Mah-Jongg Sales Company of America; Shanghai: Mah-Jongg Company of China, 1923 (eleventh printing, November 1923). Internet Archive scan. cross-check checked 2026-10-09

    https://archive.org/details/babcock_202209

    AI summary The designer's own rules in the enlarged second edition: the 136-tile set, play, irregularities, the standard score sheet, scoring examples, optional limit hands, the Chinese game, variations for two, three and five players, the Seasons, and a historical note. Its printing history runs from a first printing of September 1920. Read in the Internet Archive's OCR text.

    for this variant The base text the American variants departed from, independent of the chart's citations. It already leaves the limit and a set of optional scores and doubles to agreement, which is where house variation took hold

    Also cited on: Chinese classical, Babcock rules · bibliography #365

  2. Historical Foster, R. F. Foster on Mah Jong. New York: Dodd, Mead and Company, 1924. cross-check checked 2026-10-09

    https://archive.org/details/bwb_Y0-ACE-714

    AI summary Foster's first book on the game, published and reprinted in February 1924: play, scoring, the Seasons, the Chinese and American games, the one-double and cleared-suit fashions he opposed, and his laws. Read in the Internet Archive's scan.

    for this variant The fullest period account read of the house variants the node stands for. It was written in early 1924 by a later member of the standardization committee and is independent of the chart

    Also cited on: Chinese classical, Babcock rules, Twenty Point Mah Jong · bibliography #321

  3. Historical Harr, L. L. [Lew Lysle]. Pung Chow: The Game of a Hundred Intelligences, also known as Mah-Diao, Mah-Jong, Mah-Cheuk, Mah-Juck and Pe-Ling. New York: Harper & Brothers, 1922 (introductory note dated January 1923). cross-check checked 2026-10-09

    https://archive.org/details/pungchowgameofhu00harriala

    AI summary The rule book for the Pung Chow sets: a score card for unlimited play, a chapter on playing with a limit, and an introduction on the game's many names. Read in the Internet Archive's scan of the UC San Diego copy.

    for this variant The Pung Chow manual itself, independent of the chart. It shows a rival brand's rules, with a different usual limit from Babcock's 300, which is the kind of difference the 1924 code was meant to settle

    Also cited on: Chinese classical · bibliography #394

  4. Historical Work, Milton C. Introduction to Mah-Jongg Up-to-Date, including the American Official Laws of Mah-Jongg. Philadelphia: John C. Winston Company, 1924, pp. 5-11. Excerpt reproduced at Sloperama. cross-check checked 2026-10-09

    https://sloperama.com/cctheory/work.html

    AI summary A committee member's account of the rival names and methods of play, the confusion of the winter of 1923-24, the Herald Tribune and magazine referendums, and the committee of five that drew up one American Code for the Mixed-Hand, One-Double and Cleared-Hand games, which Parker Brothers then approved.

    for this variant A committee member's own account of how the 1924 American Official Laws came about. It is a period text reproduced on Sloperama and independent of the chart's citations for this node. It shows that the code legitimised three rival styles of play rather than abolishing them

    Only cited here · bibliography #395

  5. Historical The Book Review Digest, vol. 20: 1924. New York: H. W. Wilson Company, 1925. cross-check checked 2026-10-09

    https://archive.org/stream/bookreviewdigest0000unse_i1v1/bookreviewdigest0000unse_i1v1_djvu.txt

    AI summary The 1924 annual of digested book reviews. Its entries for Foster on Mah Jong and Hartman's Standardized Mah Jong quote press notices and Hartman's foreword on the three forms of game recognised in the American Code. Read in the Internet Archive's scan.

    for this variant A period digest that quotes the foreword of Hartman's Standardized Mah Jong, which could not be read. It confirms Work's three forms through a second committee member's words. Quoted from the /stream/ form because a stray '<' in the raw OCR file would swallow the entry when tags are stripped

    Only cited here · bibliography #396

  6. Encyclopedia Grokipedia. "American Mahjong." cross-check checked 2026-09-18

    https://grokipedia.com/page/American_mahjong

    chart’s note Jokers appearing in sets from the 1940s; the NMJL mandate from the 1960-61 season.

    for this variant An AI-written encyclopedia that shows no sources. Work's introduction confirms the 1924 committee code, but 'unified variations' overstates a code that admitted three rival forms of play

    Also cited on: NMJL card, American mah jongg · bibliography #17

  7. Encyclopedia Wikipedia. "American Mahjong." canonical checked 2026-09-18

    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/American_mahjong

    chart’s note Racks, jokers, the Charleston, and the NMJL / AMJA annual card.

    for this variant The chart's canonical source. Its current text does not describe rival American rule sets (see corrections), so it supports the node only through its further-reading list

    Also cited on: Babcock rules, NMJL card, American mah jongg, AMJA card · bibliography #13

  8. Encyclopedia Wikipedia. "Joseph Park Babcock." cross-check checked 2026-09-18

    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Joseph_Park_Babcock

    AI summary Biography of the populariser: 1893 to 1949, his 1920 Rules of Mah-Jongg known as the red book, and his membership of the committee that published a standardised American rule set.

    for this variant Work's own account of the committee confirms that Babcock sat on it in August 1924

    Also cited on: Babcock rules · bibliography #65

  9. Guide MahjongCompare. "Mahjong History and Origin." supporting checked 2026-10-09

    https://mahjongcompare.com/history

    chart’s note NMJL founders (Cecil, Meyerson, Jacobs, Potter), the 1937 Essex House meeting, and jokers entering the official rules in 1961.

    for this variant The chart's other citation for the node, and the only source read that places regional rule confusion in the years between the craze and 1937. It is a modern hobbyist page that cites no sources

    Also cited on: Babcock rules, NMJL card, American mah jongg · bibliography #14

  10. Journalism "Mah Jong Being Rescued from Money Makers: At Last a Standardized Code of Playing Has Been Made." The Indianapolis Times (Home Edition), 20 August 1924, p. 2. Chronicling America, Library of Congress. cross-check checked 2026-10-09

    https://tile.loc.gov/text-services/word-coordinates-service?segment=/service/ndnp/in/batch_in_darrow_ver03/data/sn82015313/0038334878A/1924082001/0530.xml&format=alto_xml&full_text=1

    AI summary An unsigned report on the new American code, quoting Lee Foster Hartman's forthcoming Standardized Mah Jong on how jobbers' rule pamphlets, instant teachers and self-appointed improvers had confused the game. Read in the Library of Congress OCR text.

    for this variant A contemporary report of the code's arrival in August 1924, quoting Hartman's forthcoming book on the confusion that came before it. It names four committee members where Work names five, leaving out John H. Smith. The quotes are single OCR lines because the Library of Congress serves the text as JSON

    Only cited here · bibliography #397

  11. Journalism "[Mah] Jong is Dead, Crosswords Dying; Chance for You to Win $500,000." Springfield Weekly Republican (Springfield, Mass.), 7 May 1925, p. 5. Chronicling America, Library of Congress. cross-check checked 2026-10-09

    https://tile.loc.gov/text-services/word-coordinates-service?segment=/service/ndnp/mb/batch_mb_allspice_ver01/data/sn83020847/00517171049/1925050701/0257.xml&format=alto_xml&full_text=1

    AI summary A report quoting a Milton Bradley Company official: the firm had long since stopped making the game, which had died during the summer of 1924. Read in the Library of Congress OCR text.

    for this variant A manufacturer's account that dates the craze's collapse to the summer of 1924, earlier than the late 1920s of MahjongCompare and the 1930s of the Heinz summary. The quotes are single OCR lines because the Library of Congress serves the text as JSON

    Only cited here · bibliography #398

  12. Journalism Gershon, Livia. "White Women and the Mahjong Craze." JSTOR Daily, 2 February 2021. cross-check checked 2026-10-09

    https://daily.jstor.org/white-women-and-the-mahjong-craze/

    AI summary A short summary of Annelise Heinz's 2016 Frontiers article on the 1920s craze: who played, how the game was marketed, the Chinese-American teachers, and its fading in white America by the 1930s.

    for this variant A journalist's summary of Heinz's 2016 article, and the only access to her scholarship in this pass. It says nothing on rules and puts the craze's fading later than the period newspapers do

    Only cited here · bibliography #399

  13. Guide Gross, Linda. "Mah Jongg, Anyone?" Hagley Museum and Library, Library News, 29 May 2024. cross-check checked 2026-10-09

    https://www.hagley.org/librarynews/mah-jongg-anyone

    AI summary A reference librarian's post on DuPont's Pyralin tiles for the Pung Chow Company (incorporated March 1923), drawing on DuPont Magazine and company records, with a short reading list that includes Heinz and Greenfield.

    for this variant Confirms that Pung Chow was a trademarked brand of sets from 1922-23, under which Harr's separate rule book circulated. It is a librarian's post drawing on DuPont records and says little about rules

    Only cited here · bibliography #400

AI-generated

Analysis

Written by an AI model from the sources above. It is a reading of them, not a source in its own right: every figure in it points back to a numbered source, and where the two disagree, the source is right.

Assessment

Confidence
catalogued listed in a variant catalogue with tile counts and hand sizes, but no rules text verified
Evidence
corroborated two or more independent sources agree on the facts that define this variant

Cross-comparison

What each source was read to say, set side by side. The numbers are the sources above.

SourceTilesHandFlowersScoringPayout
[1]136 tiles; a variation adds eight Seasons; the three-handed game removes the West Winds, leaving 132——The limit is 300 points a hand unless otherwise arranged, and may be changed by agreement; the three-handed game usually plays to 600. Optional Scores and optional doubling scores count only when agreed before play—
[2]——Seasons were added to the game without adjusting the other rules, and Foster blames them for much of the confusion between localitiesNames the points that varied between circles: a base score of 10 or 20 for Mah Jong, 10 points or a double for no-count hands, cleared-suit doubles for players who do not go out, doubles for one's own Season, and a rule some players imposed that a winning hand show at least one double—
[3]———The main score card is for unlimited play, with 20 points for Mah-Jong. A limit is optional: usually 300 where Mah-Jongg earns 10 points and 400 where it earns 20, while 600 is called the most popular limit in America—
[4]—Players were about equally divided among three forms of the game: the Mixed-Hand Game, the One-Double Game and the Cleared-Hand Game. The code was drafted so that all three could be played under it———
[5]—Hartman's foreword names three forms of game as the most popular in the United States, all officially recognised in the American Code of Laws: mixed hands, cleared hands and the one-double game———
  • [6] records a 1924 'American Code of Laws for Mah-Jongg' produced by a committee of publishers and enthusiasts, which unified variations before the NMJL's 1937 standardisation
  • [7] describes the proliferation of incompatible American rule sets before standardisation
  • [8] records that Babcock himself sat on the committee that published a standardised rule set, which is the 1924 American Code of Laws that Grokipedia describes. The pre-NMJL standardisation effort therefore involved the man whose rules it was trying to supersede
  • [7] The article says Babcock's rules became the American standard and stayed close to the Chinese rules, and that the NMJL's Official American Rules of 1935 turned the American style into a distinct form. Its further reading lists Babcock's 1923 second edition and Hartman's Standardized Mah Jong (1924), the book that carries the American Code of Laws by Babcock, Hartman, Foster, Smith and Work
  • [9] Dates the craze to 1922-1924 and its fading to the late 1920s. It says that afterwards a proliferation of competing rule sets confused players from different regions, which the NMJL was founded in 1937 to end
  • [1] The preface presents Mah-Jongg as Babcock's simplified and standardised form, built from conflicting Chinese methods
  • [2] Foster blames the variation on players who learned from one author's book or one importer's score card, on rule pamphlets written to dodge copyright, and on teachers who made up rules on the spot
  • [3] The introduction lists Ma-Cheuk, Mah-Jong, Mah-Juck, Mah-Diao and Mah-Jongg among the game's names, and presents Pung Chow sets as the true Chinese game
  • [4] Work names Babcock's Mah-Jongg, a committee's Ma Chiang, Ma Cheuk and Pung Chow as one game under several names. He describes radical differences in methods of play, a crisis in the winter of 1923-24, a Herald Tribune referendum in February 1924 and a second one by the Auction Bridge and Mah-Jongg Magazine. The committee as constituted in August 1924 was Babcock, Foster, Hartman, John H. Smith and Work, and Parker Brothers made its code the official American Code
  • [5] The digest attributes the foreword to 'Mr Foster' by mistake, though the entry is Hartman's book. It records that the book contains the American code of laws
  • [10] Says American fans helped draw up the standardized code by public referendum. It quotes Hartman: jobbers' sets came with rule pamphlets by anonymous authors, instant experts invented rules that passed from pupil to pupil, and some players 'improved' the game to their own ideas. The committee is named as Hartman, Babcock, Foster and Work
  • [11] A Milton Bradley Company official says the firm has long since stopped making the Chinese game, and that mah jong died a natural death during the previous summer
  • [12] Travelers brought the game to the United States in the early 1920s and white Americans bought hundreds of thousands of sets. Second-generation Chinese Americans found work teaching it. The broad craze in white America faded by the 1930s, while the game grew among Chinese Americans and later among Jewish women
  • [13] The Pung Chow Company was incorporated in March 1923 and used DuPont Pyralin for its tiles. DuPont Magazine described a Pung Chow set in September 1922

Reading it

The period sources bear out the node as a real stage, but they date it more narrowly than '1920s-30s'. Babcock's 1923 Red Book already left the 300-point limit and a set of optional doubles to agreement, and Harr's Pung Chow manual called 600 the most popular limit in America. Foster, writing in early 1924, describes rules that differed between 'localities or social circles'. He blames importers' score cards and improvised teaching, and attacks the one-double minimum and cleared-suit doubles. Work's introduction, and Hartman's foreword as quoted in the Book Review Digest and the Indianapolis Times, show players divided by mid-1924 among Mixed-Hand, One-Double and Cleared-Hand games. The five-man committee's American Code admitted all three. It is one code: the 'American Official Laws' and the 'Standardized' laws in Hartman's book are the same text, not rivals. No code by a Hecht was found. Newspapers place the craze's collapse in 1924-26, earlier than MahjongCompare's late 1920s or the Heinz summary's 1930s. Only MahjongCompare speaks of regional confusion between the craze and 1937, and no source on the 1930s was read. Still wanted: the code's full text as printed by Work and Hartman, and Heinz's scholarship.

Looked for, not found

  • Tournament rules Babcock 1923 gives rules for Progressive Mah-Jongg over several tables, but the Internet Archive full text and Chronicling America turned up no rules for any tournament of the period
  • Law No law bears on a 1920s American parlour game; not searched beyond that. The Washington Daily News (1926) quotes a dealer who blamed church disapproval of its gambling, not any law, for the fad's end
  • Forum Not searched: Reddit and BoardGameGeek refuse automated readers. A reachmahjong.com thread on 1923 appeared in web search, unread
  • Commercial No company's own rule card or advertisement was read. Pung Chow Company and Parker Brothers material is known only through Harr's book, Work's acknowledgement and Hagley's mention of DuPont Magazine (September 1922). Publishers' advertisements found in the Internet Archive (Publishers Weekly, New York Times of 5 October 1924) were not read
  • Organisation The 1924 committee and the Auction Bridge and Mah-Jongg Magazine that convened it are known only through Work's introduction and press notices; no body of the period has pages of its own. The NMJL belongs to the next node
  • Collection No museum or library record of a 1920s American set or rule card was read. The Strong Museum's archive resource seen in web search (archives.museumofplay.org, repository 3, resource 246) is unread

Known, not yet read

Sources that look worth having but could not be read for this entry. If you can reach one, it can be read and added. Every variant’s list is gathered on Missing sources.

  • Official rules Work, Milton C. Mah-Jongg Up-to-Date, including the American Official Laws of Mah-Jongg. Philadelphia: John C. Winston Company, 1924 (London: T. Fisher Unwin, 1925) — Prints the 1924 American Code word for word as Parker Brothers approved it. Its Part II explains 'the various plans that have been tried', the rival house practices the code chose among. Only the introduction was read
    Where: Print, in the US public domain; listed in the Catalog of Copyright Entries 1925 and the National Union Catalog. Tried: Internet Archive title and full-text search (2026-10-09) found only catalogue entries and notices (Atlanta Constitution, 14 December 1924; Publishers Weekly, 8 November 1924). The HathiTrust catalog API, tried with two guessed LC card numbers, returned other books. The introduction was read through Sloperama
  • Rulebook Hartman, Lee Foster. Standardized Mah Jong: A Manual of Tactics for Mixed Hands, Cleared Hands, One-Double Game. New York: Harper & Brothers, 1924; includes 'The American Code of Laws for Mah-Jongg', pp. 285-305 — The first book to print the 1924 code, with Hartman's account of the confusion before it and play for each of the three recognised forms
    Where: HathiTrust full view, https://babel.hathitrust.org/cgi/pt?id=uva.x000538491 (University of Virginia copy, public domain in the US); Google Books id 6mJLAAAAYAAJ (snippet view). Tried: HathiTrust's plain-text page answered a Cloudflare challenge (403, the site's refusal), 2026-10-09. Google Books shows snippet view only and its API answered 429 (shared daily quota)
  • Scholarship Heinz, Annelise. "Performing Mahjong in the 1920s: White Women, Chinese Americans, and the Fear of Cultural Seduction." Frontiers: A Journal of Women Studies 37, no. 1 (2016): 32-65 — The scholarly account of the 1920s craze and its end, which JSTOR Daily summarises. JSTOR Daily says it is free to read on JSTOR
    Where: Project MUSE (doi:10.1353/fro.2016.a618382); JSTOR (doi:10.5250/fronjwomestud.37.1.0032). Tried: Project MUSE redirected to its bot-verification page (the site's refusal), 2026-10-09; JSTOR not tried
  • Scholarship Heinz, Annelise. Mahjong: A Chinese Game and the Making of Modern American Culture. New York: Oxford University Press, 2021; especially the chapters 'The Mahjong Phenomenon' and 'The Americanization of Mahjong' — The book-length history of the game in America, covering the craze, the rival rule books and codes, and the road to the 1937 League
    Where: OUP Academic (doi:10.1093/oso/9780190081799.003.0009); print. Tried: OUP Academic answered a Cloudflare challenge (403, the site's refusal), 2026-10-09; no copy found by Internet Archive title search

Where it was searched

Every place the search checklist names for this variant’s languages, and what each gave, including nothing. The last full pass was on 2026-10-09.

Names searched: English Mah-Jongg, Mah Jong, Pung Chow, Ma Cheuk, Ma Chiang, Ma-Jung, Mixed-Hand Game, One-Double Game, Cleared-Hand Game, American Code of Laws for Mah-Jongg, American Official Laws of Mah-Jongg.

16 places searched
  • General web search — Standard WebSearch, 2026-10-09, three queries. (1) 1920s American mah jongg rules confusion with Babcock, Foster, Hecht, 'standardized', 1924 code and Heinz: Wikipedia on Babcock, themahjongtileset.co.uk, Hagley (read), barrypopik.com, homesandantiques.com, thingsasian.com, ilovemahj.com, analog.games. (2) Annelise Heinz on the 1920s craze, rules and Pung Chow: museumofplay.org blog and archive resource 246, Hagley, OPB Think Out Loud of 9 July 2026 with a University of Oregon professor, Xinhua 2017, JSTOR Daily (read), Moment magazine, Deseret News. (3) Hecht and a 1923 mah-jongg rule book: nothing by any Hecht; Sloperama cctheory babcock.html and argfor.html, a reachmahjong.com forum thread, a Cox & Budge listing. Unread leads: themahjongtileset.co.uk, the museumofplay.org pieces, the OPB interview. Extended mode not used
  • Wikidata — wbsearchentities for 'American mahjong' answered 429 (Wikimedia rate limit on the shared address), 2026-10-09. No item exists for a period node like this one
  • Wikipedia, in every declared language — The English article American mahjong was read as raw wikitext through index.php?action=raw on 2026-10-09; the action=parse API had answered 429 twice. Its further reading led to Babcock 1923 (read) and Hartman 1924 (wanted). No Wikipedia article covers the pre-NMJL period. The Joseph Park Babcock article was not re-read, since an existing observation covers it
  • The sources' own references, and who cites them — Backward, one round. Wikipedia's further reading gave Babcock 1923 (read) and Hartman's Standardized Mah Jong (wanted, HathiTrust Cloudflare). Foster 1924 gave Harr's Pung Chow (read). Work's introduction gave the committee, the referendums and Parker Brothers' approval. JSTOR Daily gave Heinz 2016 (wanted). Hagley gave Greenfield 2010 and Snyder 1923. Forward citation was not tried. Second-round leads, unread: Mary C. Greenfield, 'The Game of One Hundred Intelligences', Pacific Historical Review 79(3), 2010; Henry M. Snyder, The Ma-Jung Manual (1923, ed. Foster); A. J. Israel, How to Play Mah-Jong (1923); Work's Mah-Jongg columns in the New York Herald Tribune and the referendum of February 1924; the Auction Bridge and Mah Jongg Magazine (February-September 1924); Foster's Laws of Mah Jong for 1924; DuPont Magazine of September 1922 on Pung Chow sets; D. B. Pritchard, Mahjong (2001, lending-only at the Internet Archive), whose index mentions five experts drafting the American Official Laws
  • Internet Archive full-text search — Advanced search by title (mah jongg, mah jong, ma jong, pung chow; Heinz as creator) and full-text search for "american official laws" mah (16 hits), "standardization committee" mah jongg (92) and "mah jong" hecht 1924 (nothing on the game), 2026-10-09. Read: Babcock 1923, Foster 1924, Harr 1922, Book Review Digest 1924, and the Atlanta Constitution of 14 December 1924. The Constitution's book notice says Work's book includes the new official laws with portraits of the committee; it is not recorded separately. Found, not read: Harr, How to Play Pung Chow (Harper 1923; howtoplaypungcho0000llha) and the Gutenberg Pung Chow text; Wilcox's one-act play Mah-Jongg (1923); the New York Times of 5 October 1924 (Harper advertisement naming John H. Smith of the Mah Jong Standardization Committee); Publishers Weekly of 8 November 1924 and the Catalog of Copyright Entries 1925 listing Work's book; the English Catalogue for 1925 (London editions); Pritchard 2001 (access-restricted); a Yiddish Book Center recording of Heinz, nybc-ybcr-1007 (audio). No scan of Work's or Hartman's book was found
  • Wayback Machine — Not searched: every source read is live, and no dead site is known for this period
  • Google Books — The Books API answered 429 (daily quota), 2026-10-09. The Google Books page for Hartman's Standardized Mah Jong (id 6mJLAAAAYAAJ, digitised from the University of Virginia) loaded, but shows snippet view only with 'No eBook available'
  • HathiTrust full-text search — The catalog API by LC card number, 2026-10-09, found Hartman's Standardized Mah Jong in full view (uva.x000538491, pdus) and Foster on Mah Jong in full view (coo.31924023380409). babel.hathitrust.org answered a Cloudflare challenge (403, the site's refusal) to Hartman's plain-text page, so the book is wanted. Two guessed LC numbers for Work's Mah-Jongg Up-to-Date returned other books. Full-text search not tried, being behind the same challenge
  • WorldCat — Not searched: HathiTrust and the Internet Archive catalogues established which books exist, and WorldCat answered 429 to the research environment on 2026-10-08
  • Scholarly indexes — Crossref bibliographic queries, 2026-10-09, found Heinz, 'Performing Mahjong in the 1920s', Frontiers 37(1) 2016 (two DOIs, MUSE and JSTOR), and chapters of her 2021 OUP book, including 'The Mahjong Phenomenon' and 'The Americanization of Mahjong'. Project MUSE redirected to its bot-verification page and OUP Academic answered a Cloudflare 403; both are wanted. OpenAlex and Google Scholar not tried
  • YouTube — Not searched: nobody plays the 1924 codes today. Interviews with Heinz (OPB radio, a Yiddish Book Center recording) surfaced in other channels as history leads, not rules
  • English-language forums — Not searched: Reddit and BoardGameGeek refuse automated readers. A reachmahjong.com thread titled 'back in the year 1923' appeared in web search, unread
  • Mahjong reference sites — Sloperama's CC-theory page work.html was read: it reproduces Work's 1924 introduction, a period text. Sloperama's babcock.html and argfor.html appeared in web search and were not re-read; the twenty-point pass read argfor.html on Foster's Laws of Mah Jong for 1924. The Mahjong Wiki was not searched, because its search results are drawn by script (earlier pass)
  • App and platform listings — Not searched: no app offers the 1920s American codes
  • English-language newspaper archives — Chronicling America through the loc.gov JSON API, with OCR from the tile.loc.gov full-text service, 2026-10-09; loc.gov page viewers answer a Cloudflare challenge. Four searches. 'mah jong standardized code', 1924 (3 pages): Indianapolis Times of 20 August 1924 (read). 'mah jong craze', 1925-1929 (29 pages): Springfield Weekly Republican of 7 May 1925 (read); Washington Daily News of 3 June 1926, p. 8 (read but not recorded); Birmingham Age-Herald of 25 March 1925 (a passing mention). The Washington Daily News article reports dealers saying the fad died as suddenly as it came, with $25 sets sold at 25 and 50 cents the Christmas before; it cannot be quoted because a stray '<' in its OCR swallows the article under tag stripping. 'mah jong rules different', 1923-24: only a Springfield Weekly Republican review of Racster's manual (24 July 1924). 'pung chow mah jongg rules', 1923-24: a humour piece in the Ventnor News (13 February 1924). Trove, Papers Past, NewspaperSG and the BNA were not searched, the subject being American
  • Statutes published in English — Not searched: no statute names a 1920s American parlour game

In the tree

Descends from Babcock rules, as the source chart draws it.

Descends into

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