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20 Colones Banco Comercial de Costa Rica
| Issuer | Banco Comercial de Costa Rica |
|---|---|
| Year | 1906-1911 |
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| Composition | Paper |
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| Obverse description | Black intaglio print on green, yellow, and orange underprint; a seated naked male allegorical figure holding a caduceus at left faces a seated female allegorical figure holding a scythe at right, with a central vignette of the Banco Comercial building in San José. A front-facing head of Hermes wearing a winged helmet appears at bottom centre. |
|---|---|
| Obverse lettering | 20 EL BANCO COMERCIAL DE COSTA RICA PAGARÁ AL PORTADOR A LA VISTA LA CANTIDAD DE VEINTE COLONES EN MONEDA ACUÑADA DE ORO SAN JOSÉ COMERCIO AGRICULTURA Presidente Administrador (Translation: The Commercial Bank of Costa Rica will pay to the bearer on sight the amount of twenty colones, in minted gold coin. Commerce. Agriculture. President. Administrator.) |
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| Comments |
The Banco Comercial de Costa Rica was a private commercial bank operating under the 1900 banking law that allowed chartered institutions to issue their own circulating notes alongside state-issued currency. This 20 Colones note falls within the period when Costa Rica's monetary system was genuinely pluralistic — multiple private banks held concurrent right of issue, a situation that ended definitively with the 1936 nationalization of the currency monopoly under the Banco Internacional de Costa Rica.
Private bank issues from this era are chronically underrepresented in collections outside Central America. The Banco Comercial itself was among the smaller issuers, and attrition from tropical climate and casual destruction has been severe.