Another interesting damsel in distress, waiting to be saved:













This is a late-50s/early-60s Sterling, which is a Mosrite-adjacent brand made by a guy named Joe Hall who worked with Semie Moseley between 1959 and the early '60s. This is basically in the form of a late-50s Mosrite, like the ones Joe Maphis and Larry Collins played, and is maybe one of two Sterlings like it. The pickup spacers off gassed, and this otherwise well-kept guitar is going to need a lot of love. Incredibly, both pickups on the guitar side are making sounds. The Mandola side is a mystery for now, because the switch that turns its pickup on is frozen.

Weird-o-rama! 

(extreeeme corrosion. almost looks galvanic) 😯

I've seen a couple instances of this — it's always off-gassing celluloid that does it.

On a very different note, I've sort of fallen down a rabbit hole because of this guitar, wondering whether there are Mosrite/Sterling/Hallmark/Alembic connections other than the infamous Alan Thompson.

The Bakersfield to Arvin to Bay Area guitar building pipeline might be worth researching.

I'm trying to think of what you could soak those Klusons in to get them back. You probably have access to some pretty cool stuff for metal clad coins. I mean... they're just old Klusons, but they've clearly been trimmed individually to fit that instrument.