Yokai Menuki - Translation help wanted

[Rodenbacher]

I recently acquired these Menuki which depict a rarely seen topic on sword fittings: Yokai. These have been very common as a motif for Okimono or Netsuke, but I guess that a Samurai would not show them on his weapons. They would rather be an enemy of a Samurai if they existed or maybe the topic was too childish for a serious Katana Koshirae...

 

Here we have a Kara-Kasa (the Umbrella) and one from the Family of the Tsukumo-Gami (old household-goods), a bowl and a mortar for grinding ginger. They are obviously late Edo or even Meiji or Showa, were never mounted (maybe thought of as a gift) on a Tsuka but glued to a piece of cardboard - and they are very well done, it's really fine work.

 

Also they are signed - can somebody help me with the translation?

 

Thanks a lot!

Peter

[Rodenbacher]

[Shugyosha]

Hi Peter,

The signature is “Yasuchika”, bottom picture before the one above. 

[Rodenbacher]

Hi John,

Great, thank you very much! 

[John A Stuart]

I suspect Sagemono tobacco pouch ornaments.

[Bugyotsuji]

 

The Mei suggests that they were made as a pair, and the menuki posts have been ground off, but perhaps they were later destined for a different fate like a Mae-kanagu,  as John says above, but it would surely be a shame to separate them.  

[Curran]

Very interesting menuki.

Signature isn't correct for shodai or the rokudai. I don't have references for the other generations online. Maybe someone can check Wakayama for you.

 

[Curran]

Not 4th gen either.  

https://page.auctions.yahoo.co.jp/jp/auction/g476522615

So that leaves 2nd, 3rd, 5th(?), or 7th(?), or the other possibility of gimei.

 

Still, to me it is an extremely interesting rare design.  If I have seen this design in menuki before, I do not recall it.

-->Early in my interest in the hobby, I had a pair of "drunken gaijin under a lamp-post" menuki.

The older Japanese at the NY Metro club had a good laugh at them.

I didn't know how atypical they were at the time. I've never seen their like again.

[Rodenbacher]

Thanks a lot, this is all valuable information!