100 Colones Silver certificate, 'en moneda acuñada de plata'

Costa Rica's Administración de Rentas Públicas — the public revenue administration, not a central bank — issued this certificate as a direct claim on coined silver, a design rooted in the chronic distrust of unbacked paper that had plagued Central American monetary systems since the 1890s. The phrase "en moneda acuñada de plata" is a legal commitment, not decorative typography: the holder was entitled to physical silver coin on demand.

ABNC produced the plate in New York. The 1917 timing places this squarely in the period of World War I commodity pressures, when silver itself was fluctuating sharply on international markets — which made the redemption guarantee increasingly difficult to honor in practice.