The main obstacle for Showato acquisition is the "mei". Actually, that's very simple, but oriental characters is totally separated from western Latin character system. In handwriting form, it's not easy to pattern matching those.
The official showto makers were listed in this web page (Japanese wartime swordsmith name list):
http://ohmura-study.net/025.html
This particular maker's name was in the page. I circled his name in the web page picture. The "mei" is longer, first 5 characters were his location (Nōshū, see map below), followed by his 4-character name (Takeyama Yoshinao, kanji form of the name see the picture), followed by two more characters,,, translating into English "carefully made".
The price of Showato varies. Since most Americans cannot read Japanese, so the "mei" is actually less important in pricing according to my market observation. But like other C&R, condition of the sword still counts. For swords in this shape, auction house estimation was $800-$1200, but I ended up paying $1725 BP included. It could be cheaper if no one competed, but there were competitors. Under $2000 is OK. Ideally, if under $1500, I felt I would have easy profit even for short-term play. At $1725... probably not short-term play though,,,, at least, not easy.
If blade has issues, it's usually cheaper. There are ancient blades, etc, I know, some rare item's condition is not excellent, but ... that's for dedicated collector. For regular players, condition, condition, condition. If blade has nicks, sword tip is broken, etc, a few hundred dollars. The rule is not very different from C&R pistol playing.