5 Colones Banco de Costa Rica

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.