"The Mother Ten Thing Are Expensive"



Via Flickr, I saw this photo with caption of "Cindy, a beautiful canvas". I wish I could say the same about the artist, but unfortunately the mistakes are so obvious.

The first character is correct and means "mother".

The second one, I am not sure if it was suppose be a Christian cross, means "ten" with four sparkling flares, or means "rice" which also phonetically translated as America in Japanese.

The third one is a mistake. The character is vertically mirrored. When written correctly, means "thing, substance, creature".

The last character means "expensive, costly, valuable".

Even if all the characters are correctly tattooed, the translation would still be:

"The Mother Ten Things Are Expensive"

What does that mean exactly?

Update: Todd thinks this tattoo means "Expensive American Malt Liquor":

It is 母米物貴. "母米" is from "酒母米", as in "American malt liquor". The whole thing means "expensive american malt liquor".

Could anyone verify this?