100 Colones

Waterlow & Sons held the Costa Rican contract through much of the mid-twentieth century, and this 1942 issue came during an unusual moment: Costa Rica declared war on the Axis powers in December 1941, days after Pearl Harbor, aligning itself firmly with the Allied nations. Government expenditure increased accordingly, and higher-denomination notes like this one saw heavier institutional use than retail circulation would typically demand.

Waterlow's intaglio work on the Central American contracts from this period is generally of high quality — the firm was still operating at full capacity before its later controversies caught up with it.