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5 Colones
| Issuer | Banco Nacional de Costa Rica |
|---|---|
| Year | 1939-1942 |
| Type | Log in to see details |
| Value | Log in to see details |
| Currency | Colón (1896-date) |
| Composition | Log in to see details |
| Size | Log in to see details |
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| Printer | Log in to see details |
| Designer(s) | Log in to see details |
| Engraver(s) | Log in to see details |
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| Obverse description | The bank title and issuing department inscription appear across the top, with a central portrait vignette of Juan Mora Fernández, First Head of State of Costa Rica (1824), rendered in intaglio. The denomination is stated in both numeral and text form at the bottom, flanked by ornamental guilloche work, with the date and authorising accord inscription distributed across the lower field. |
|---|---|
| Obverse lettering | Log in to see details |
| Reverse description | The bank title and issuing department inscription are placed at the top, with a central vignette of the ruins of the Santiago Apóstol Parish in Cartago, rendered in a detailed engraved style. The denomination appears in text and numeral form at the bottom, with the printer's imprint in the lower margin. |
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| Signature(s) | Log in to see details |
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| Comments |
Waterlow & Sons held the Banco Nacional de Costa Rica contract through much of the 1930s and into the wartime years, producing a series of notes that remained in circulation well past their nominal issue window. The P#204 specifically bridges the period when Costa Rica's economy was absorbing the fiscal pressures of the Second World War — a conflict the country officially entered on the Allied side in December 1941, following Pearl Harbor.
Waterlow's reputation was permanently damaged by the Artur Virgílio Sousa Alves Reis affair of the 1920s, in which the firm was duped into printing unauthorized Portuguese banknotes. By the time this note was produced, internal controls had been significantly tightened — though the scandal's shadow over the printer never fully lifted.