What's in a mahjong set?

The core 108 + honours

Every mahjong game shares a skeleton: 108 suit tiles (Dots, Bams and Craks/Characters, 1–9, four of each), 16 Winds and 12 Dragons — 136 tiles. Everything above 136 is where the games diverge.

American: 152 to play, 160 to buy, 166 at YMI

American play adds 8 Flowers and 8 Jokers to the 136-tile skeleton: 152 tiles in play. Designer sets ship 160 — 10 jokers and 6 blanks — to support blank-friendly variants and to guarantee spares. Yellow Mountain Imports ships 166 with additional blanks and spare jokers. All three numbers can describe a correct, complete American set; judge by the breakdown, not the headline.

Chinese: 144–148

Chinese sets add Flowers and Seasons (8) to the skeleton for 144, plus spares to reach 146 or 148. There are no jokers in Chinese rules — a Chinese set advertising jokers is describing an Americanised export set, which may be exactly what a casual group wants, but should be bought knowingly.

Riichi: exactly 136, plus red fives

Riichi removes flowers and seasons entirely and recolours three of the 5s red. If a Riichi listing counts 144 tiles, the extra 8 are flowers the game does not use — not a bonus, a tell that the set was not designed for Riichi.

Blanks are the insurance policy

Blank tiles are unprinted spares. Lose a 7 Bam and a blank can be engraved or stickered to replace it, saving the set. When comparing two otherwise-equal sets, the one with more blanks is quietly worth more.