Mahjong - III - "游の屋"

Mahjong- 144c. "游の屋"

 We have a rather curious case here. Aldough the cards to all appearences the cards look chinese, the name of the maker contains  "の"- a japanese word, meaning "of". However, it is known that in taiwan, this character is sometimes used to replace 的, having an identical meaning, to give the brand a more exotic feel. Hence, if I did not err in the transcription, the maker's name is "house of games"
Another curious feature is the colour scheme. This deck replaces blue with black, and the 2s, 3s and 5s of coins are only printed in either red or green, onitting black/blue entirely

                                                                             Coins.  

bamboos.

萬- wan or 10000s

The winds ( top, with "南"inverted) & dragons ( bottom) Again, black replaces blue

Some flowers. Note the different, more stylized carving

saxony pattern cards, single vs double faced

The first deck shown is a traditional saxony patter, which is, in my opinion, the prettiest of the decks to come out of Germany.

the suit of bells (2nd picture) is particularly charming.
Note the Peeping Tom on the ace ( top row, 3rd card from left) 
on the 8 of bells ( 3rd pic, 2nd row, first card from the left), there is a depiction of chickens mating.
above them are strung some sausages. nice.....

sadly, this patern is almost extinct right now. if you buy a saxon pattern, today, you would end up with the "double faced "version...

when you compare the pictures, it is easy why this is called the double faced version.
aldough this version is admittedly easier to play with, it has lost some of the  detail, like the little pictures on the bottom of the cards, ( on the eight of bells, there are neither sausages nor trysting chickens) but still, some features remain (like the roman number X on tens, and the peeping tom on the ace of bells)