50 Pesos

El Banco Herediano was one of several private banks chartered in Costa Rica during the liberal reform period of the 1870s–1880s, when the government deliberately opened banking to provincial commercial interests rather than concentrating it in San José. Heredia was a significant coffee-producing region, and notes of this denomination would have moved through agricultural credit — financing harvests, land purchases, and export advances against future crops.

The undated year field ("188_") was filled in at issuance, making precise dating of individual notes dependent on whatever ink-completed digit survives. The American Bank Note Company printed for numerous Latin American private banks simultaneously during this period, and the plates were often shared or adapted across clients — worth scrutinizing against related ABNC issues from the same decade.