1 Escudo

Costa Rica's early gold coinage was struck at the Casa de Moneda in San José, one of the few Central American mints operating independently after the collapse of the Federal Republic of Central America in 1838. The escudo denominations continued a colonial-era monetary framework even as the young republic scrambled to establish fiscal credibility with foreign trading partners, particularly British merchants financing the nascent coffee export economy.

KM#98 is known with multiple date varieties across the 1850–1855 run, and die quality was inconsistent — the San José mint was perpetually underfunded and working with worn equipment.