What the box provision names
On this page11
The wording
On a plated article, "no such article, nor any tag, card, or label attached thereto, nor any box, package, cover, or wrapper in which such article is incased or inclosed, shall be stamped, branded, engraved, or imprinted with the word 'sterling' or the word 'coin'".
Count the list
The article itself, a tag, a card, a label, a box, a package, a cover and a wrapper. The statute anticipates every surface a seller might reach for and closes all of them.
Which is why this is a packaging property
Everywhere else in this library the regulation governs the product and the packaging inherits the consequence. Here the packaging is inside the prohibition.
And the evasion it was written against is obvious
Leave the plated piece unmarked, print "sterling" on the presentation box, and let the buyer draw the conclusion. The statute names the box so that does not work.
Stamped, branded, engraved or imprinted
Four verbs, covering foil blocking, printing, embossing and engraving. The method does not matter.
Incased or inclosed
The archaic spelling is the statute's own. It reaches a box the article sits in and a wrapper it is folded into equally.
The same section covers fineness marks on plated goods
A plated article may not carry a fineness indication unless it is accompanied by wording identifying it as rolled gold plate, gold plate, gold electroplate or gold filled.
So the qualifier travels with the number
Which is the same pattern as the trademark travelling with the quality mark. A claim without its qualifier is the thing being prohibited.
What this means for a presentation box
If you sell plated work, the box is a regulated surface. Generic boxes that came printed with "sterling" from a supplier are a liability sitting in your stockroom.
And for a maker selling both
Sterling and plated lines using the same box stock is how this goes wrong. Either the box says nothing about metal, or it is line-specific and kept apart.