10 Colones

The Banco Nacional de Costa Rica was established in 1877, making this 1878 issue among the earliest notes the institution ever produced. The American Bank Note Company contract was a deliberate choice — Costa Rican authorities at the time consistently favored ABNC's New York operation over European alternatives, partly for security engraving quality and partly for the company's established relationships with other Central American republics navigating the same trust problem with domestic paper currency.

Pick S214 falls within the private banco series predating Costa Rica's state banking consolidation of 1914, after which most surviving private issues were withdrawn and destroyed. Survivor rates for 1870s Central American commercial bank paper are genuinely low.