.../...recently decided to consider the purchase of a new medium format camera ...7...
-'freshly CLAd'
-'just out of the workshop'
-'professionally overhauled'
And so on. However, having contacted a few of these sellers to investigate the details of the CLA (what was done, who did it, what's the warranty, is there written proof, etc) the answer is, invariably, either silence or some variation of 'actually I did it'.
when searching for MF camera bodies on ebay i haven't seen often mention of service. But everytime it was mentioned it was said to have been done at a technician and the one time it was a body I bought the seller told me who and had the receipt, and coincidence, it happened the repairman was one I know in person, he has a 2nd hand shop I have visited routinely.
MF cameras were produced in BRD, DDR, Sweden, USSR and Japan mostly. The Rollei SL66 and the Rolleiflex costs an arm and a leg, and chances it was been serviced are quite plausible. There are still enough former Franke u. Heidecke technicians in Germany who can do it, it's no hassle for a seller living in Germany and the added cost won't be much relative to the sale price.
For the Hasselblad 500 no idea, but the body is quite dumb, the finesse is in the shutter ie. Compur, otherwise the gearing in the backs.
DDR and USSR are the simple ones, Kiev-6s/60 and Pentacon and the complex one, the Salyut/Kiev-8(8). If these have been serviced by a technician it will show in the price or it will be a guy who bought a bunch in Kiev, got them checked by an ex-Arsenal guy and resells online.
Japanese sellers in my experience are overcautious and reliable. If they mention service they will have the receipt. Last year I wanted a Bronica S2 body just for tinkering and learning, so if my main body has a problem I could maybe fix things myself, so I bought a S2a body sold "as-is" "for parts". What I received was in fact fully functional, with minor problems, I replaced the mirror and focusing screen foams, did a cleansing along the way, lubricated the speed selector which was very heavy, ordered the missing dark slide, fixed a light leak on the back. So small trivialities, and I ended with a very nice body which I keep as backup. Will have to buy another body, I hope actually broken this time, otherwise I'll have a 3rd fully functional Bronica...
I'm just wondering if there is some sort of 'self-repair' thing going on where bored, Covid-recluse film camera owners give it a go at 'fixing' a camera, having perhaps learnt from a couple of youtube videos, before attempting to dump the result on the auction sites?
if focal plane shutter systems, you don't fix a Rollei SL66, a Hasselblad 2000/201, a Hasselblad 1000f or Salyut by watching online videos. You need a body to practice on.
Look I have this Salyut on my to-do list, I have also the official booklet with extensive diagrams and descriptions of procedures, (for the Kiev-80 ie. Salyut-S variant, basically the same), a booklet with repair Q&A also with good technical drawings, by a german engineer who collaborated with Arsenal on this in the 90's, and there's the short and nice explanations of Steve Ash floating on the net. I could send the whole to you. You have everything, put it back together, functional and with correct shutter times and come back tell us about it