5 Centavos

The Casa de Moneda de Costa Rica operated under persistent resource constraints throughout the 1860s and 1870s, and the .750 fineness on this issue reflects a deliberate reduction from earlier colonial-era standards rather than any technical limitation. Costa Rica at the time was negotiating its monetary relationship with neighboring Central American states, several of which had already adopted or were moving toward decimal systems — the centavo denominations of this period were partly a signal of modernizing intent.

KM#110 is known with date variants across the decade-long run, and pieces from the earlier dates in the series tend to show softer definition at the numerals due to die preparation inconsistencies at the San José facility.