An early 20th century nickel-steel standard meter by Cambridge Instrument Co Ltd, in original case.

Divided in centimetres, the first and last centimetres subdivided in millimetres.

Marked: C. I. Co. Ltd. C266593 ( and with Cambridge Instrument Company’s logo).

Length: 106 cm.

Width: 3.5 cm.

Case length: 111.5 cm.

See the Cambridge Instrument catalogue 1906, page 4:

Standard meters of invar steel. These are made of an alloy of steel containing 36 % of nickel, introduced into Metrology as a result of experiments made at the Sèvres International Bureau of Weights and Measures by Dr Guilleaume. 

Cambridge Scientific Instrument Company was a company founded in the late 1870s by Robert Fulcher. In 1881 the company was taken over by Horace Darwin and Albert Dew-Smith. In 1891Horace Darwin became the sole owner of the company. (Horace Darwin, the son of Charles Darwin). In 1928 when Horace Darwin died Charles G. Darwin, Horace’s nephew, took over as chairman of the board and Robert Whipple become Managing Director. Robert Whipple’s collection of scientific instruments later formed the basis of the University of Cambridge’s Whipple Museum of the History of Science, which was founded in 1944.