1 Colón Silver Certificate, uniface with stamped back

Costa Rica's Secretaría de Hacienda — the Treasury, not the central bank — issued this note directly under government authority during a period when no single bank held a monopoly on paper currency. The Silver Certificate designation matters: these notes were theoretically redeemable in silver coin, a promise that carried real political weight in 1902, when bimetallism was still a live debate across Latin America and public confidence in paper depended entirely on that guarantee.

The uniface printing with a stamped reverse is not a curiosity — it was deliberate cost-cutting. ABNC produced the face plate; the back received only a simple control stamp applied locally. That division of labor is legible in the finished note if you know to look for the ink differential.