1 Colón provisional overprint

In 1943, the Banco Nacional de Costa Rica applied a provisional overprint to existing stock rather than commissioning a new printing — a wartime economy measure that affected several denominations across the series. The American Bank Note Company had produced the underlying notes, but the overprint itself was applied locally, which is why registration on surviving examples varies considerably.

Pick 190 is among the more common provisional issues from this period, though notes with clean, well-struck overprints are harder to find than the raw survival numbers suggest.