Careful with ukulele.de
I bought many ukuleles from Rigk, too. At the beginning of my UAS he was my only source for ukuleles since I'm also from Germany and the other German ukulele online shop "ukulele24.de" is very unreliable (I paid for strings that never arrived... no answers on e-mails, etc.) and "theukuleleshop.co.uk" had unfortunately closed down.
The problems with ukulele.de began when I asked for a regular customer discount. First he sent me a wrong ukulele (another Flea than I had ordered) and no strings (I had ordered Worth strings of a value of 50 EUR), then he sent me the right Flea but not the right strings... dammit! That gave me a strange feeling... so I sent the (second) Flea and wrong strings back to him and asked him to refund my payment - which he did promptly. I'm not going to buy from him again. (Dammit, I still don't own a Flea because of this story!!)
I also found out that Rigk is exploiting his monopoly around here. He raised the prices of the Kala Acacia models by 50 EUR (20%!) when he read in forums that these models were much sought-after. This lead to the fact that his Kala Acacia Soprano model now is more expensive in Germany than if I ordered it from MGM!! (YES, you're hearing right, even
with shipping costs and tax added, it's still cheaper for me to import this ukulele from Hawaii!!)
Another point I'd like to mention is, that Rigk's ukuleles aren't set up (except for his own RISA brand that is manufactured in the Czech Republic and well set-up). This may not be a problem with the more expensive ones like the Ponos. I never had a problem with these. But at the beginning of my UAS I bought a white Kala Color Concert (with an active pickup) from Rigk and the instrument looked even dusty when I unpacked it!! It looked like it had been in the shelf for years... the fretboard was extremely dry, the saddle was crappy and badly installed so that the pickup did not pick up the sound well. Problem was: At this time, I was
really a beginner with the uke and
I had no idea about anything. Later I made a bone saddle for this uke and set it up properly myself.
I suggest you also
ask Ken Middleton or other European uke players about "ukulele.de" to find out their opinions and experiences!
There are also ukulele dealers in France and I've heard that Ken Middleton has bought ukuleles from them (in case you don't want to buy from MGM because of the shipping & import tax). You may ask Ken for a list of suppliers.
Btw.
I think such a list could be of interest to more people in the forum.
At the end I'd like to state that MGM ( http://stores.ebay.com/Musicguymics-Room ) is a great ukulele supplier! I will definitely buy from him again!
You may also want to check out http://www.mainlandukes.com ! I don't own one (yet) but in this forum you only hear the best of these ukes!