5 Pesos

Banco de Costa Rica was a private commercial bank operating under government concession — not a central bank — and in 1899 it held the right to issue circulating currency alongside a handful of other privileged institutions. That arrangement ended with the founding of the Banco Internacional de Costa Rica in 1914, which progressively absorbed note-issuing authority. These earlier private bank emissions were eventually called in and destroyed in bulk, making survivors from the 1899 series genuinely uncommon.

The American Bank Note Company produced the plates, as it did for the majority of Latin American issuers of this period who wanted intaglio-printed notes difficult to counterfeit locally.