The oldest dated blade to survive under the name Yoshisuke is a tanto inscribed Suruga no Kuni ju Yoshisuke saku, dated the eighth month of Eisho 2 (1505), and from that fixed point the early designated work of the Shimada group of Suruga Province can be read. Yoshisuke is the principal name of that group, a Muromachi school the published sources place in Suruga and read as strongly marked by the forging of neighboring Sagami. The sword directories order the line with care, placing a first generation in the Kosho era, a second around Eisho and Daiei, and the same name then continuing in succession down into the shinshinto period, though the directories disagree among themselves, one of them assigning a Yoshisuke of Tensho to a fourth generation. The four blades on record here gather in the half-century from the Eisho tanto through the Daiei and Tenbun eras, and the NBTHK fixes their dates by the inscriptions cut into their tangs rather than by the directory chronology, so that the surviving signed and dated pieces become the anchor on which the early history of the name rests.

The hand that most distinguishes Yoshisuke is the one carried on the katana, where the Sagami inheritance the school is known for stands at its clearest. Of the Daiei katana the published sources write that Yoshisuke received strong influence from Sagami workmanship, judging it virtually certain, and the blade bears out the judgment. Over a flowing itame that stands open in hada-dachi, with ji-nie adhering and chikei entering, he tempers a mixed pattern that takes in togariba, the nioiguchi kept somewhat tight with ko-nie and sunagashi running through it, the activity broken in places into a boxed look where discoloration sets the ha into hako. The boshi runs midare-komi, rounded at the tip with a long return and tempered deep down the monouchi in yakisage. The form is shinogi-zukuri with mitsu-mune, the curvature shallow and the point a large o-kissaki, and the surfaces are carried with skilled horimono, a descending bo-hi finished in kaku-dome with a relief kurikara at the waist of the omote and a sanko-ken on the ura. The published sources judge the workmanship of both ji and ha good and the carving skilled, and call the blade close in these respects to late Soshu work.

The quieter half of him lives on the tanto and the wakizashi, where the school's own steel is most plainly seen. The jigane there is a tightly forged itame, areas of nagare-hada mixing in places and a masame tendency entering toward the mune, the tone turning somewhat whitish, with ji-nie forming well. Over that jigane he sets a shallow notare mixed with gunome on the tanto and a notare-ba with nie on the wakizashi, the Eisho tanto carrying a large gunome with a choji flavor; the nioiguchi runs deep and nie adhere well, sunagashi streams through, and the habuchi frays into hotsure in places. The boshi is sugu to ko-maru on most, becoming an ichimai on the Eisho piece. The carving carries through this register as well, a kurikara set within the koshi-hi and, on one tanto, cut in openwork sukashi-bori, with a bonji and suken and a shobu-hi on the wakizashi. Across these smaller blades the manner is consistent and self-evidently the school's, the whitish tight itame and the deep-nioi temper running from one piece to the next.

The corpus reads, then, as two manners sorted by form rather than by date, the broad Soshu-leaning katana on the one side and the school's tanto and wakizashi hand on the other, and the dated tangs let the two be held against the directory chronology. Of the Eisho tanto the published sources note that among extant works those bearing an Eisho date are the oldest, and of the Daiei katana that the date on its tang is extremely valuable, the early history of the Shimada Yoshisuke name being argued from these surviving inscriptions rather than from the generation count the directories propose. The openwork carving draws its own comment, the published sources calling the sukashi-bori on the post-Tenbun tanto an unusual thing to find, and the blade is judged good in ji and ha and a valuable reference piece. These are the notes the judges return to across the four blades, the dated inscription as the school's particular value and the carving as a mark of its skill.

Within the school Yoshisuke stands as its central name, the hand the published sources reach for when they describe the Shimada group, and the Sagami tie is the thread that runs through every designation. His own grounded distinctions are internal to that group, the open standing itame and the deep midare-komi boshi and the relief carving that set the katana close to late Soshu work on the one side, the tight whitish itame and the quiet ko-maru that mark the tanto on the other. No successor line can be drawn forward through any single hand here, the four signed blades being too thin a corpus for that, but the name itself continues through several generations of Shimada smiths down into the shinshinto period, and the published sources value these early pieces precisely as material for the study of that descent, the Daiei and Eisho tangs called extremely valuable because the chronology of the early generations rests on them.

On the matter of acquirability the record is modest and clear. Yoshisuke holds no National Treasures and no Important Cultural Properties; the four blades on record are all Juyo, signed and dated where the tang allows, and none carries a recorded denrai or a named institutional holder. They sit, that is, in the tradeable Juyo tier rather than in the patrimony that never moves, which makes a Shimada Yoshisuke a comparatively attainable thing among designated Muromachi swords, less a landmark to be waited for than a well-made blade of good workmanship that comes to a collector from time to time. What recommends one is what the published sources recommend in them, the dated tang that anchors the school's chronology, the skilled kurikara and suken carving, and the late-Soshu character of the better katana, each piece valued as reference material for a group whose early history is read off these very blades. For the collector who wants a documented example of the Suruga school at the point where the Sagami influence is plainest, the early Shimada Yoshisuke is among the more approachable of the named Muromachi hands.