Opinion about this cantilever

A Third Party Rebuild Service is typically charging $60ish to open up and inspect the Cart', to assess for a donor to be worked on.  

I am suspecting plenty of crud will be found internally, when looking at the particulate collected. 

A little off topic, but what did you use to take those close up photos?

It doesn’t look bad to me, at least as far as the cantilever goes, but given its age, I would send it over to VAS for a checkup if you’re in the US. He is very highly regarded among forum members and I think he will give you an honest assessment.  Soundsmith is excellent as well, but, in my experience, their turnaround is much longer. 

the only way to have confidence, other than it sounds good on very well known content, is to have an experienced pro like VAS check it for you.

You took a chance, you might just consider his cost part of the deal.

I've had wonderful results with Soundsmith.