20 Colones Banco de Costa Rica

Banco de Costa Rica was a private commercial bank operating under government concession, not a central bank — Costa Rica did not establish a true central bank until 1950. Notes like this 20 Colones circulated alongside issues from competing concession banks, a patchwork monetary arrangement that persisted through the early republic's repeated fiscal crises.

The American Bank Note Company held the printing contract for most of the bank's series at this period, a relationship common across Latin American issuers who relied on ABNC's security printing infrastructure when no comparable domestic capability existed. The S-prefix in the Pick reference indicates this is catalogued within the specialized section — likely reflecting its private bank rather than government issue status.