In Province during the period two groups worked side by side: the lineage and the Kongōbyōe lineage, the latter the early phase to which these blades are attributed. The anchor the school through one named smith, Sadamori (貞盛), known from a signed "Chikushū Reizei Sadamori, Shōhei 25, first month, day," whose work is read as the reference point for the group. Through Sadamori the records frame Kongōbyōe by its Yamato kishitsu, a Yamato temperament carried in both and , and place these from the end of the period through the era. One blade is described directly as a Kyūshū production, its forging carrying the "Kanamono flavor" (kanami) the records treat as distinctive of Kyūshū work.
Across the three a consistent vocabulary recurs. The forging is large and mixed with , with prominent and , the grain standing out and tending toward ; near the edge a slight enters and becomes . The is repeatedly read as inclining to a dark, blackish tone, with adhering and entering. The is a narrow or , faintly tinged with shallow and mixed with small , carried in a tight-tending () to which adheres well; along the there is , with uchi-noke, , and , and the can take on a subdued () feeling. The runs with or , somewhat . To recognize Ko-Kongōbyōe is to read this pairing: a standing, dark-toned Kyūshū against a narrow, tightly gathered .
For the records weight the joining of and : the blackish, grain-standing forging filled with fine set against a narrow whose feels tight, with modest and spanning and read as scenery rather than as flourish. The named anchor is Sadamori's dated Shōhei 25 , an Important Art Object; one of these carries provenance to Ishikura Yasuke of Osaka. The note that no signed Kongōbyōe works run earlier than the period, so these are judged as the lineage's earlier reach, placed late into . The records read them as superior works () of plain, forceful bearing definitively attributable to Ko-Kongōbyōe.