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5 Colones Banco de Costa Rica
| Issuer | Banco de Costa Rica |
|---|---|
| Year | 1901-1908 |
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| Composition | Log in to see details |
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| Printer | American Bank Note Company, New York, United States |
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| Obverse description | Central vignette of an allegorical female figure representing the Republic seated, a cornucopia at her feet, with an agricultural and industrial landscape in the background. Elaborate guilloche borders frame the composition, with the denomination and bank title inscribed within the surrounding panels. |
|---|---|
| Obverse lettering | Log in to see details |
| Reverse description | Central vignette of the Banco de Costa Rica headquarters building on the Plaza de Armas, San José, rendered in fine intaglio engraving and set within an intricate guilloche frame. The numeral '5' appears in large format to either side of the vignette against a red and green underprint, with the bank title 'BANCO DE COSTA RICA' arched across the top and bottom of the note. The imprint of the American Bank Note Co., New York, is visible at the lower margin. |
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| Comments |
The Banco de Costa Rica was a private commercial bank operating under government concession, not a central bank — it held note-issuing privileges alongside two or three competitors during this period, which means these notes circulated in direct competition with paper from other authorized institutions. The American Bank Note Company produced the plates, as it did for the overwhelming majority of Latin American commercial bank issues of this era, giving the series a visual kinship with notes from entirely different countries sharing the same engraving shop.
Pick S173 falls in the "S" private bank series, a detail worth noting for attribution: the Banco de Costa Rica lost its issuing rights when the Banco Internacional de Costa Rica was established in 1914 as the country's first state bank, effectively ending the era of competing private circulation.