Reachmahjong.com

Someone said on the old forums:

"A limited number of Japanese sets are aimed for the export market with indices."

Personally, I have never seen any such sets. Does anyone know where I might find them online? Looking for sets that are:

Blue-backed
Flat front and back (non-convexed)
Slightly squarer corners

Essentially the same sets as those used in automatic tables, like these:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xkh8hFIdhgQ
But with indices.

The nearest I've come across are these Chinese tiles:
http://www.mah-jong-shop.com/shop3/prod ... cts_id=192

Hi Jez and welcome to the forums.

Buying a Chinese or American set might be an easier route. If you really want the red fives of a Japanese set you could carefully repaint some of your tiles. You might even find a set with four spare blank tiles which you could repurpose as Japanese-style haku (white dragon). You'd need to look for ones of a decent thickness though so they could stand more easily on the tabletop without using racks.

Personally the only reason I'd get tiles with Arabic numeral indices would be if I was going to be repeatedly training new groups of learners. Mahjong tiles are so much more attractive without the extra markings and it shouldn't take anyone too long to learn thirteen kanji - four winds and nine numbers (only six numbers really since 一, 二 and 三 are pretty obvious).

I tried a few English online retailers and didn't spot anything too useful. Given your specific requirements you might want to consider a company that puts together custom sets. I've found this site previously but can't vouch for them. http://www.domino32.com/mymahjong/