Kripke's standard meter

Back when there was a standard meter, Kripke claimed that it was contingent a priori that the standard meter is a meter in length.

This seems wrong. For anything narrowly logically entailed by something that’s a priori is also a priori. But that the standard meter is a meter in length entails that there is an extended object. And that there is an extended object is clearly a posteriori.

Kripke’s reasoning is that to know that the standard meter is a meter in length all you need to know is how “meter” is stipulated, namely as the actual length of the standard meterstick, and anything you can know From knowing how the terms are stipulated is known a priori.

There is something fishy here. We don’t know a priori that the stipulation was successful (it might have failed if, for instance, the “standard meter” never existed but with a conspiracy to pretend it exists). In fact, we don’t know a priori that any stipulations were ever made—that, too, is clearly a posteriori.

Maybe what we need here is some concept of “stipulational content”, and the idea is that something is a priori if you can derive it a priori from the stipulational content of the terms. But the stipulational content of a term needs to be defined in such a way that it’s neutral on whether the stipulation happened or succeeded. If so, then Kripke should have said that it’s a priori that if there is a standard meterstick, it is a meter long.