A person who makes or sells or offers to sell or dispose of or has in his possession with intent to sell or dispose of any article of merchandise marked, stamped or branded with the words "sterling" or "sterling silver," or encased or enclosed in any box, package, cover or wrapper, or other thing in or by which such article is packed, enclosed or otherwise prepared for sale or disposition, having thereon any engraving or printed label, stamp, imprint, mark or trademark indicating or denoting by such marking, stamping, branding, engraving or printing that such article is silver, sterling silver or solid silver, unless nine hundred and twenty-five one-thousandths part of the component parts of the metal of which such article is manufactured is pure silver, shall be guilty of a Class 2 misdemeanor.
Code 1950, § 59.1-62; 1968, c. 439; 1975, cc. 14, 15.