George and Nic, that is indeed an unusual but very nice bass. My guess is that the controls are Elan: volume, pan, filter, Q.
Rich; welcome to the group!
The description was probably meant to read 2AXY as in two AXY model pickups.
It has been my observation that the average market prices of all models of used Alembics have increased over the last year or so. It would seem that the two primary reasons for this are greater demand, more players are becoming aware of Alembics and more Alembic owners are purchasing additional instruments, and the significant price increase on new models last January. So, it is my expectation that the average market price of used Alembics will at times level out and remain steady but in the long run continue to increase over time.
The pickup selector switch should read standby, neck, both, bridge. You can switch the pickup leads to reverse the neck and bridge positions. You can also, with an Allen wrench, loosen the two hex screws and reposition the knob itself so that it points in a different direction.
As Mica stated in the post that Nic referenced, the Q if off in the up position. Open the filter all the way and with the Q off play a scale up high on the neck. Now flip the switch down to cut the Q on and play the same scale again. You should hear a difference in the high end of the freqency range. Now cut the Q off and back off a good bit on the filter. Play a scale on the low end of the neck. Now cut the Q on and play the same scale. You should hear a difference in the low to mid range of the signal depending on how much you rolled off the filter. As Mica's post pointed out, the boost provided by the Q switch is at the frequency you've selected with the low pass filter. Thus if you've got the filter rolled off, you'll hear a boost in the lower frequencies; if you have the filter open, you'll hear the boost in the higher frequencies.
