The Ideal Mother-in-Law
By Salvatore Mazzone
I love character steins and think they're great fun. They make up about 25% of my collection. Four of these were made by the Reinhold Merkelbach factory, one of which is the Catalog Number 680 "Mother-in-Law" ½-liter pottery stein seen here.
The depicted character is a woman holding a bag full of money, specifically 150,000ℳ (more on that later). The underside of the stein's base carries the lightly impressed markings "680" (its catalog number) and "Geschutzt" (meaning legally protected or copyrighted); it does not carry a maker's mark, or if it does it is too lightly impressed to be ascertained by my aged eyes.
The firm generally referred to as "Reinhold Merkelbach" was founded in 1843 as "Merkelbach Manufaktur" by Wilhelm Merkelbach. In its early years it produced basic utilitarian household items with little to no artistic character. In 1883 the founder's son, Wilhelm Reinhold Merkelbach, who then ran the operation, renamed the company "Reinhold Merkelbach" and initiated a shift to art pottery, including beer steins. After a long life and several changes of ownership, the firm ultimately closed shop in 2007
1.
A search of The Beer Stein Library yielded 1100 Reinhold Merkelbach designs, of which 42 are character steins. That's a lot of steins! According to Reference 1, the Mother-in-Law stein was among the firm's early offerings after its reconstitution in 1883.
I was curious as to just how much money momma-in-law was carrying around in that sack - what exactly was the value of 150,000ℳ back when the stein was made?
It's hard to know precisely when the mother-in-law stein was introduced, but using 1900 as an approximate date, the unit of currency in Germany at the time would have been the Goldmark (symbol ℳ, same as marked on the moneybag) with 1 US dollar worth about 4.02 Goldmarks
2. Thus, 150,000 Goldmarks would have been the equivalent of about $35,714 at the time, which in turn would be the equivalent of about $1,293,204 in today's dollars
3. Can you imagine carrying that amount of money around in a sack? Mama-in-law was clearly very well-to-do!
The text at the bottom of the stein reads, "Das ist die liebste Schwieger MAMAMA!" Translation: "This is the dearest mother-in-law!"
Indeed!
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1 Berg, Jerry, The Steins of Reinhold Merkelbach, The Beer Stein Library, https://www.beerstein.net/articles/merkelbach.asp
2 German Mark, Wikipedia, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/German_mark_(1871)
3 CPI Inflation Calculator, https://www.in2013dollars.com/us/inflation/1900?amount=1#:~:text=Value of %241 from 1900,cumulative price increase of 3%2C520.56%25.
Stein Collectors International