A whole bunch of Alembics are for sale on the German online music store, below.  Also,, there's are real one-r: did someone once have a '83 Scorpion body, Distillate electronics, and pickups that are closely spaced that lost two switches somehow, or what am I missing in that bass?  The Zebrawood and head stock really plays with that particular omega cut-out nicely.  Anyhow, there's a lot of cool stuff on the webpage.

https://www.station-musicshop.de/Bass/en/Electric-Basses/Alembic

It says the switches are "inside". Previous owner probably did a "set it and forget it" and figured just get them out of the way. I pretty much never use mine (treble always flat, bass always boosted), but I like to experiment once in a while.

Cool Series II Exploiter with graphite neck.  That's a pretty rare bird!

https://www.station-musicshop.de/epages/64398533.mobile/en_GB/?ObjectPath=/Shops/64398533/Products/10514