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

Costa Rica's Administración de Rentas Públicas — the public revenue administration, not a commercial bank — issued certificates redeemable specifically in struck silver coin, a commitment spelled out verbatim in the note's text. That clause mattered. By 1917, the colón's silver backing was already under strain from wartime metal pressures, and paper instruments promising physical specie redemption were a deliberate attempt to shore up public confidence in a note-issuing authority that wasn't a central bank.

ABNC's New York plant produced the series with the quality expected of the firm at that period. Pick 149 is scarce in any grade; the 1917 silver certificate issues of Costa Rica generally did not survive in quantity.