The old registers list several smiths for the Ayanokoji school of Kyoto, Sukesada, Sadaie, a second Sadatoshi written with different characters, Sueyuki and Tadaie among them, yet of them all only Sadatoshi survives in signed work. The published sources count the Ayanokoji, with and , as one of the three lineages of Yamashiro swordsmiths in the period; the school takes its name from the smiths resident on Ayanokoji street in Kyoto's Shijo quarter, and "its founder is Sadatoshi". On his date the registers do not agree: the Noami Meizukushi places him around Hoji (1247-48), the Kokon Kaji Meizukushi around Bun'ei (1264-75), and one tradition relates that he was on friendly terms with Kuniyuki, the two even producing substitute works for one another as demand required. Within the school the only other hand attested in surviving work is Sadayoshi; the remaining register names survive in no blade at all.
Surveying the extant works as a whole, the published sources return to a single formulation: his manner follows the working range of the old Kyoto makers of the and Gojo schools, an archaic elegance that calls Kuniyasu to mind. His classic is slender, the taper from base to tip marked, the high with , closing in a . The is a mixed with and over a tone, the intervals of the undulations close, the pattern small and intricately complex. Along the , still smaller patches of , with and , appear in dotted succession and build an effect akin to . Above all the clouds softly: this is what the published record names "one of his viewing points", and the rare blade without it is noted as the exception. From precisely these traits the draws its chronological conclusion, the workmanship being "appraised as going back earlier than the conventional view".
The is a well-knit , in places mixed with or a slightly standing , with fine lying thick, fine , and a that stands out; -like patches mix in on some blades. At its best the carries a moist, viscous quality, and of one the published sources write that it precisely accords with the phrase of the old tradition texts, "appearing viscous and sticky". Within the , and enter frequently, adheres, and fine and run through. The continues the temper quietly with , at times taking on a flame-like appearance or finishing , on some blades entering with a small return.
Two registers carry the attribution. The signed bear a two-character , the character cut large in a cursive manner and the character Toshi smaller, set low on the toward the and at times avoiding the groove, a placement the published sources note on the designated National Treasure as well. Most signed blades are ; an is recorded as rare among his works, and one preserves the signature folded back as an rather than lose it to the shortening. The are appraised by the marks: the published sources speak of work that conforms to "the rules of Sadatoshi", and the best of the unsigned blades are said to show "a style directly connected to his signed works". No dated work survives, and the scholarship turns on that absence. The registers' Bun'ei dating sits against the archaic cast of everything extant, so the re-reads the old substitute-work legend rather than discard it, concluding that if there was indeed a point of contact between Sadatoshi and Kuniyuki, "it would fall at Sadatoshi's late years and the beginning of Kuniyuki's".
A minority of blades departs from his usual make. In these the is bright and clear without , the temper led by on a tone, and the published sources read them toward the younger Kyoto master: one is described as "a make recalling Kuniyuki, the brightly clear", the activity within its splendid. His place among the Yamashiro smiths rests on his own tells, the tightly packed small-pattern , the dotted effect along the , and the softly clouded , the very features the published record treats as evidence for setting him a generation before his registered date. At the other end of his range stands the blade the sources judge the most archaic of all his works, a grand signed read as probably of his initial period, in which the connection to Kuniyasu can be plainly discerned. The school he founded continued only narrowly; with Sadayoshi the sole other attested hand, the surviving Ayanokoji work is concentrated almost entirely in Sadatoshi's own name.
Fujishiro grades him Jo-jo , and forty-three designated works stand on record. One is a National Treasure, the in the care of the Tokyo National Museum, of which Honma records that among all the Sadatoshi he had examined it is the finest; three more are Important Cultural Properties, and five hold Bijutsuhin certification, among them blades once owned by Maeda Toshinari and by Kurokawa Fukusaburo, the latter now in the Kurokawa Institute of Ancient Cultures. Twenty-five works on record are signed against seventeen unsigned. Seventeen blades carry recorded provenance, through the Kishu Tokugawa house, the Shimazu of Sadowara in , the Maeda, the Matsudaira, and the Meiji statesman Miyoji, a noted lover of swords; one retains an of Shotoku 2 (1712) by Kochu valuing it at thirty gold pieces. The National Treasure and the Important Cultural Properties are patrimony, preserved in the museum and shrine collections that keep them, Hie Jinja and Jingu among the recorded institutional owners. What a private collector may realistically encounter lies in the thirty-two blades of the and tiers, though most of recorded whereabouts are held privately or institutionally and seldom move; a signed Ayanokoji comes to the market only rarely, and is a landmark for Yamashiro connoisseurship when it does.