FINALLY!!! Found and bought an automatic Mahjong table!
Posted: Fri Apr 27, 2012 3:54 am
Hello all! Below is my automatic mahjong table story and further below is a review of the actual table that I bought.
Story
I've been a Riichi Mahjong player for five years now, playing at first with an "American" set with which I used the extra blank tiles as the Haku and painted four of the fives red for the red fives. In the Spring of 2009 an anime that some of you on this board are probably familiar with started airing, "Saki." Besides being utterly ridiculous (yet incredibly fun to watch, one of my favorite anime ever) with it's mahjong "powers" (Rinshan Kaihou EVERY TIME???) it also introduced me to automatic mahjong tables...which I immediately decided that somehow I had to get my hands on one of those. I was coincidently taking a trip to San Francisco at the time, so I asked around in both "Japantown" and "Chinatown." Not only did no one have any idea what I was talking about, but one Chinese-American lady even told me I was a "crazy Caucasian kid" because mixing the tiles by hand did something to the tiles' "ki" or something along those lines. So of course I turned to the Internet for some answers and of course popped the question here at RM as well. Through some research of my own, and some very useful information from the always helpful and friendly Tom Sloper and David Hurley (http://www.japanese-games-shop.com/mahj ... e-mahjong/), I discovered that importing a table from Japan would be killer in terms of both purchase price and shipping price. The Chinese manufacturers only seemed to make tables with ginormous 44mm Chinese Style tiles - and the tables had to be shipped to a port and then picked up...and I don't think the port in my home of Green Bay, Wisconsin qualifies.
Through a random Google search I stumbled upon www.versatilemachinery.com which seemed promising for the fact that it was based in teh US and I could actually call them and talk to them about what I was looking for. I spoke with Vicky, the proprietor of the company and explained what I was looking for, an automatic table that could deal 136 Japanese Style tiles with the blank white Haku, the red fives, the Japanese style bird on the 1-sou tile, etc. She didn't have a table/tile set like that but she said she'd look into it for me. The amazing thing is that she actually did, and now she offers tables with Japanese tilesets. So I took a chance and ordered what looked like a great table... the W3S http://www.versatilemachinery.com/VMAMT-W3.php with http://www.versatilemachinery.com/Japan ... -Tiles.php tiles.
.
Review
And am I glad that I did. I highly recommend this table for a number of reasons. Internally it seems to do its job very well, setting the tiles very quickly (15-20 seconds!!!) and rather quietly. The table itself has a great, refined look to it, IMHO far better than the "plastic toy" look of the Japanese tables. It comes with a cover that lets you use the table as a standard table when it's not Riichi night. The tiles themselves look just like a Japanese set in terms of tile design...the one caveat is that the tiles are 36mm in size, not the 29mm that I am used to for Japanese tiles. I got used to that pretty quickly though. Of course they include the typical four red fives. The table is just the right size for your walls, hand, and discards, and there is plenty of space on the center control panel to put your Riichi stick. The electronics of this table do not keep track of score, but they do keep track of Renchan and notify you when you need 2-han to win after on the 5th and later Renchan. They also indicate the dealer and roll the dice for you. The table can be set to deal many different numbers of tiles, in case you want to play different styles of Mahjong. As for what I paid, this very nice looking and performing table plus tiles was $1299 plus about $260 shipping to my door...it came in less than a week. One other thing - Vicky, the lady that I worked with at Versatile Machinery, provided perfect customer service throughout the whole process.
So, in short, I love my new automatic table, and my family wants to actually learn how to play now that they don't spend FOREVER mixing the tiles and building the walls. If you want an automatic table with Japanese style tiles, live in the US, and can deal with the 36mm tile size, I highly recommend this table.
I hope you enjoyed my story and my review; please ask me anything you want about the table. And if you do buy a table from her, tell her that "Dr. Andrew" told you about her and she'll know right away what you're looking for.
Thanks for reading!
Story
I've been a Riichi Mahjong player for five years now, playing at first with an "American" set with which I used the extra blank tiles as the Haku and painted four of the fives red for the red fives. In the Spring of 2009 an anime that some of you on this board are probably familiar with started airing, "Saki." Besides being utterly ridiculous (yet incredibly fun to watch, one of my favorite anime ever) with it's mahjong "powers" (Rinshan Kaihou EVERY TIME???) it also introduced me to automatic mahjong tables...which I immediately decided that somehow I had to get my hands on one of those. I was coincidently taking a trip to San Francisco at the time, so I asked around in both "Japantown" and "Chinatown." Not only did no one have any idea what I was talking about, but one Chinese-American lady even told me I was a "crazy Caucasian kid" because mixing the tiles by hand did something to the tiles' "ki" or something along those lines. So of course I turned to the Internet for some answers and of course popped the question here at RM as well. Through some research of my own, and some very useful information from the always helpful and friendly Tom Sloper and David Hurley (http://www.japanese-games-shop.com/mahj ... e-mahjong/), I discovered that importing a table from Japan would be killer in terms of both purchase price and shipping price. The Chinese manufacturers only seemed to make tables with ginormous 44mm Chinese Style tiles - and the tables had to be shipped to a port and then picked up...and I don't think the port in my home of Green Bay, Wisconsin qualifies.
Through a random Google search I stumbled upon www.versatilemachinery.com which seemed promising for the fact that it was based in teh US and I could actually call them and talk to them about what I was looking for. I spoke with Vicky, the proprietor of the company and explained what I was looking for, an automatic table that could deal 136 Japanese Style tiles with the blank white Haku, the red fives, the Japanese style bird on the 1-sou tile, etc. She didn't have a table/tile set like that but she said she'd look into it for me. The amazing thing is that she actually did, and now she offers tables with Japanese tilesets. So I took a chance and ordered what looked like a great table... the W3S http://www.versatilemachinery.com/VMAMT-W3.php with http://www.versatilemachinery.com/Japan ... -Tiles.php tiles.
.
Review
And am I glad that I did. I highly recommend this table for a number of reasons. Internally it seems to do its job very well, setting the tiles very quickly (15-20 seconds!!!) and rather quietly. The table itself has a great, refined look to it, IMHO far better than the "plastic toy" look of the Japanese tables. It comes with a cover that lets you use the table as a standard table when it's not Riichi night. The tiles themselves look just like a Japanese set in terms of tile design...the one caveat is that the tiles are 36mm in size, not the 29mm that I am used to for Japanese tiles. I got used to that pretty quickly though. Of course they include the typical four red fives. The table is just the right size for your walls, hand, and discards, and there is plenty of space on the center control panel to put your Riichi stick. The electronics of this table do not keep track of score, but they do keep track of Renchan and notify you when you need 2-han to win after on the 5th and later Renchan. They also indicate the dealer and roll the dice for you. The table can be set to deal many different numbers of tiles, in case you want to play different styles of Mahjong. As for what I paid, this very nice looking and performing table plus tiles was $1299 plus about $260 shipping to my door...it came in less than a week. One other thing - Vicky, the lady that I worked with at Versatile Machinery, provided perfect customer service throughout the whole process.
So, in short, I love my new automatic table, and my family wants to actually learn how to play now that they don't spend FOREVER mixing the tiles and building the walls. If you want an automatic table with Japanese style tiles, live in the US, and can deal with the 36mm tile size, I highly recommend this table.
I hope you enjoyed my story and my review; please ask me anything you want about the table. And if you do buy a table from her, tell her that "Dr. Andrew" told you about her and she'll know right away what you're looking for.
Thanks for reading!