Bill i notice mention small body alembic guitars being 24 3/4 scale. I checked my paper work on my small body series guitar and it is a long scale guitar. Maybe as it was a custom build the original buyer specified a long scale guitar.
Before I finally let my baritone guitar go I did consider a possible conversion to piccolo bass but like you I had too many other things going on to give it attention or money.
This one should be a really interesting to see once it is scrubbed up nicely.
Jazzyvee