I picked up a decent sword stand in San Francisco's Chinatown yesterday. It's 23 inches high, $25 (apparently non-negotiable in the store from which I bought it) and comes in four matt-lacquered wood pieces with a set of wood screws. Power screwdriver in hand, I assembled it in a couple of minutes. Here it is with my Bugei Samurai Koshirae Katana:
The base is indented to hold the end of the saya in place, and seems fairly sturdy. They're available in most of the tourist gift shops in San Francisco's Chinatown. Not as common as the conventional over-the-mantlepiece (or in the tokonoma) horizontal stand, but has a nice "shotgun ready rack" aspect to it.