Sorry, I don't think there is a plethora of defective ones coming from Japan - only that folks that have bought one from there (and shipped to US) that just happened to be defective and stated they did not want the bother of having to return it or the seller offered to help pay for repairs.
I've had generally very good experience with buying from Japan eBay sellers and the few instances where something was not right, I was able to work with the sellers to fix it to my satisfaction. The ratings seemed to have changed over the last few years and become somewhat ambiguous -- but when reading carefully through the descriptions and looking closely at images and asking clarifying questions I am finding what I want (regardless of it being listed as EXC or EXC+++ or whatever they mark it as the key is in the descriptions as their EXC rating is not matching with EXC ratings from a well established seller like KEH.com).
Originally posted by Ektachrome Thanks for the reply, that’s really helpful, so I won’t worry so much about reliability as long as I get a good one to start with.
Does buying from Japan tend to be troublesome, then? Naturally all the ones I’ve found are on ebay from Japan - I cant seem to find one with any of the UK shops I’d normally trust.
The repair information is very good and nice to know they’re not necessarily just bricks if something does go wrong!
---------- Post added 11-21-2019 at 09:05 PM ----------
One thing that does come up somewhat often are the shutter speed dial being broken off and then re-glued back on. I would ask about the history of the dials as that is one thing that I have seen and heard most with 645N / 645NII bodies coming from Japan. Not an epidemic, but if there is one thing to look for and ask questions about I would point to the shutter speed dial. The other dial seems much, much less problematic.