For anyone interested, the guys at Teleskop Austria have serviced many Esprit objectives, dismantling and remounting the lenses in the cell; might be worth contacting them to see what they'd charge to service the objective (objective alone could be posted).
https://teleskop-austria.at/
http://interferometrie.blogspot.com....l?view=sidebar
Lee, is the mould between the lenses or only on the surface? Easy to clean if it's on the front or rear surface?