jimh

In Sweden these cost ca $1 at Hasselblad service centers. I´ve heard they go for around $10 in the US, so I don´t really see a reason to fiddle with ebay. Call your nearest Hasselblad service shop.

They are very easy to replace.

How about a TLR?

They share the disadvantages of parallax errors and close up problems with the rangefinders, but also the advantages, like weight and bulk. And their big advantage, shared with the SLRs is that they have a big nice fosusing screens for composition, instead of a small viewfinder.

It is the light seal itself, it is not made of felt but of plastic. At least not on newer, or recently serviced backs.

You need to service the back, it will probably leek light. But it is easy to do at home, the only tool needed is a screwdriver.

The seal itself costs around $1,50, at least here in sweden. It could be more expensive in other countries, but I doubt it could cost more than a few dollars. Buy a couple of them to have as spares, they seem to go quite often.

Salyut is the former name of the camera nowadays known as Kiev 88. I think they were made around 1960-1970 something. It seems to be a rather common opionion that they actually were of higher quality back then, when they still had the old political system intact (in Swedish we say plan economy, but I don´t know if it is the same in English). Sounds reasonably, they didn´t have as many reasons not to do a good job back then.

I would go for it if the price was right, but not without trying and feeling it out first, as with any other USSR/Ukranian product.

I own a Kiev 88 made in 1992, and I´m perfectly happy with it except for the sticky aperture diaphragm in the 80 mm Arsat. Functions perfectly if manually stopped down with the DOF-preview though.