50 000 Colones

The 50,000 colón note was the highest denomination in circulation when it entered the series, reflecting the cumulative effect of inflation that had eroded the colon's purchasing power significantly over the preceding two decades. By 2009, the Central Bank had been managing a crawling peg exchange rate regime — the "minidevaluations" system introduced in 1984 — though that policy was itself being phased out around the time this note appeared.

Oberthur's involvement in Costa Rican currency printing has been long-standing, predating this issue by many years. The watermark listed here as the sole security feature is notably spare for a denomination of this value — later printings of high-denomination Costa Rican notes incorporated additional elements.