50 Colones

The Banco Nacional de Costa Rica was established in 1914 as a state bank but gained a near-monopoly on note issuance only after the 1936 reforms that reorganized Costa Rican banking. By 1942 the country was formally aligned with the Allied powers following Pearl Harbor, and dollar-linked trade relationships made ABNC the natural choice for printing — the New York firm had handled Costa Rican currency contracts intermittently since the nineteenth century.

The 50 Colones was a high denomination for wartime domestic circulation, where most transactions ran well below it. Surviving examples with honest circulation wear are actually the more historically coherent pieces.