10 Pesos

Costa Rica's 1865 peso-denominated notes predate the establishment of a formal central bank by decades — at this point, currency issuance was still a function of the republic itself rather than any chartered banking institution. Bradbury, Wilkinson & Company, already well established as engravers and security printers for colonial and emerging-market governments, produced this note in London to a standard the young republic could not have achieved domestically.

The peso series was eventually displaced by the colón system introduced in 1896, making these early republican issues short-lived by design. Surviving examples from the 1865 date are genuinely scarce — the tropical climate was not kind to cotton-paper notes that saw any real use.