Seiko - my apologies, I should of prefaced my question with the warning "Silly arcane quiz for obsessive S&W collectors" or not posted the question and just admitted I was showing off revolver boxes - that is an early post war long action M&P, as is the red box, which is two piece. S&W used some of these red boxes in the early post war years, along with some left over pre-war hinged top red boxes. It isn't clear to me when the switch was made to the gold box. The S prefix serial numbers switched to the C prefix in 1948 for the M&P.
I've been trying to take a photo of a nice 22/32 Kit Gun from 1954 with its box but I can't get a photo that looks halway decent, if and when I manage it I'll post it.