Large unprinted areas were typically "routed" out of the printing plate to prevent the plate from picking up ink in these areas and transferring to the paper as it's pressed against the plate. That's what the circle and lozenge-shaped holes are for, Jim.

The cutouts at the box end are to make that area white on the box and show where the stamp is to be applied by the factory.

I would suspect all current card manufacture is by offset printing, not by letter press using a plate like this. Not a lot of letterpress printing done anymore due to cost.

Don L
Apprentice printer, Carrollton Daily Democrat, 1953