o.k, I gotta chime in here.

I just bought a sequential # pair of KM 84s from Madooma. Since I live in Switzerland, it's way easier and faster to have a friend of mine transfer the money from Germany. My friend did this YESTERDAY, about 2 hours later I got an e-mail from Martin @ Madooma saying that the money has arrived and not even one hour later Fedex sent the tracking number.

The mics will arrive today! I've never ever experienced such great customer support anywhere. (And that's not to slight Vintage King and Mercenary who are exceptional as well).

The money I paid for these mics is VERY reasonable, also because the badges are missing. Madooma is very accurate in its description. the D-20 I recently bought was labeled 'great sounding' and that's exactly how it turned out to be.

If you take a closer look, you see that the 'expensive' mics are the ones that are very in demand like the D19 or the D12. It so happens that these are also the mics that stand the most chance of being broken beyond repair because those were workhorses and not expensive condensors like U47s, 67s etc.

Before buying the Km 84s I asked Martin whether the capsules were reskinned and he way almost offended and said that they would ALWAYS mention such a thing if it were so.

I feel very strongly about this because there is so much misinformation here from folks that simply have no clue.

BTW, you're 'tip' with the re-branded D-12s is valid but it doesn't change the fact that a lot of what you find on e-bay is 'challenged'. Even if your 'Echolette' branded D12 is only say 250 bucks it's still 250 bucks too much of it sounds like shit beyond repair.

I have a MUCH bigger problem with private seller jumping on the 'vintage train' by selling broken mics for apparently better prices as opposed to a legit stores that servicing mics, accurately describe them and run a great website with great customer service.

Another thing: Before I even bought from Madooma I asked Martin about a D-19c that I bought privately on e-bay (it turned out to be broken of course). He was very helpful even though I didn't buy anything from him until later.

Okay, mea culpa. I didn't want to come across too biased against Madooma. As usual you get what you pay for. If you buy a mic from them they already sorted the lemons. That's what you pay for, premium prices, premium service.
So it's either Madooma or another source with good reputation .....or finding a rare mic and risking buying vintage junk. Risk or saving money, it's up to you.

I mention it a lot: vintage usually means "maintenance nightmare". People get told a lot of BS about old stuff. It's old, the reaper usually has it on it's list to take it with him sooner or later. I know, I'm old, too. A lot of my gear is.