How do you expect them to get a shutter count on a film camera? That sounds basically impossible, to me at least. Shutter counts are a digital era thing, for digital cameras.
Estimating how many rolls they've shot over the years.
Estimating how many rolls a film camera has shot over the years is pretty much an impossibility...
Many medium format rollfilm SLRs use interchangeable backs...
MANY medium-format rollfilm SLRs use a shutter within EACH Lens...
Your desire, a shutter count, on a film camera, makes no sense. On a digital camera, a shutter count is a normal, natural,easy thing to want or expect, but expecting or wanting a shutter count, or a rolls-of-film-shot count from
KEH, makes no sense, due to the nature of film, and film cameras, and cameras that use shutters located within each and every lens, in many cases.
Many medium format rollfilm cameras are a body, a magazine, a lens with a shutter, and a viewfinder, and then either a built-in advance mechanism, or an add-on advance mechanism, or a hand-crank mechanism. A camera body can have one film magazine (aka "back") used for a decade, and then the user/seller could replace that back, and sell the camera, and the camera body and/or the "back", would look pretty new.A camera can be used in-studio, or carried outdoors a lot. A camera can be covered with gaffer tape, to minimize wear, or protected by a carrying case. A camera can be CARRIED a LOT, but not SHOT much! I have a used Nikon D800 that has terrible body wear, and a crack in the battery compartment, and is five years old....but when I bought it, it had a mere 30,000 clicks on it!
With film, film rolls and developing costs money; so much that most well-used film cameras that were NOT "wedding cameras", have pretty low click-counts, compared to digital cameras. My iPhone has 69,000 clicks on it...it the past 18 months.
Where a magazine attaches to a camera body, there is often some wear, where the lock-in lugs go in,and where they are sometimes slightly not aligned as magazines are changed. Some magazines use "inserts", some do not. And so on and so on...this is why "estimating" use can be...impossible. it's not as if
KEH can give you a shutter count. If you buy a BGN camera (bargain-grade) it will be heavily, used. They have a grading system that is fair, conservative, and which the rest of the country uses, with mostly good results, I think, based on 35-plus years of comments I've read about
KEH.
Your original post and comments are, I think, unfair, and unreasonable. You wrote about
KEH: "
However due to their inability to disclose critical information, such as shutter count, accurate product observations, I don't seek to take the risk of purchasing from them."
They have accurate product descriptions in 1) their for-sale rating system on each and every product 2)their price relative to other identical models and 3)verbal comments in addition to their product condition rating.
They have a pretty good returns system. When buying used equipment, "buying condition" is what many people consider to be their normal modus operandi; an EXC+ item is certainly less-used than a Good or BGN piece of gear.
KEH states that their equipment grading system is, "the industry standard". Here is the page for their grading system:
Grading System
Take a look, and see how
KEH's verbal ratings correspond, exactly, to the ratings used by
B&H Photo,
Adorama, and Amazon.
