Old Marble (Faux) Specimen Ruler with Hand-carved Numbers vintage salvation arms and it is 8 3/8"

and it is 8 3/8" between that ledge and the bottom of the crossbar above

featuring 91 line drawn caricature portraits of types from "the Tool" to "the Investor" to the "Merry Widow"

The front and back cover have both come loose from the hand-stitched spine

crackers or other small treats

and there are no parts that have fallen off inside

Old Marble (Faux) Specimen Ruler with Hand-carved Numbers vintage salvation arms and it is 8 3/8"A little searching turns up that Italian marble pietra dura "specimen" rulers were a thing, popular in the late 1800s as Grand Tour souvenirs. This, however, is not that it appears to be to be all one piece of marble, with carved lines to delineate inches and the variations in color done with some sort of dye. I tend to like aspirational things imitating other things, but what I especially like about this one, which makes it quite singular, is that