Loading...

History of Costa Rican Coinage

2017-02-06 Mon

The beautiful country of Costa Rica was earlier a sparsely populated union under the Central American Republic from 1823 to 1839, which back then, consisted of modern day Guatemala, Honduras, Nicaragua and El Salvador.

Coinage from this part of the world has not been very popular among numismatists. A sun emerging behind three mountains was the commonly used theme. The 1/4 real was made of .0247 ounce of silver and were struck on and off between 1824 and 1851. After the country dissolved, Central American Republic minted many of these coins.

The 1/2 real struck between 1831 and 1849 were reduced to .0407 ounce. The 1/4 and ½ are rare to find, rarer still are the real and 2 reales. Like other Spanish coins, the crown-sized 8 reales were minted in larger numbers than the fractional pieces. The Central American Republic versions struck between 1824 and 1847 featured overdates and other varieties.

Larger coins featured five mountains, and a single tree was depicted on the reverse along with the denomination. The gold 1/2 escudo was first struck in 1828 and the production stopped until 1843. These coins were then annually minted from 1846 to 1849.

Gold escudos were struck in .875 fine alloy with .0949 ounce of gold for the first time in 1824. They were issued in small numbers irregularly till 1850. Coins falling under the 2 escudo series were struck in 1828, 1835, 1843 and 1850 with low mintages of 2,750 to 7,432. Same is the case with 8 escudos.

A lot of early coins like the small silver 1/2 real, gold 2 and 4 escudos was counterstamped with a six-pointed star in 1841 and 1842. The holed Mexican 1 real silver, Peruvian 2 reales, Bolivian 4 reales and Peruvian and Mexican 8 reales are also the unique coins. This was done probably due to coin shortage.

A COSTA RICA counterstamp with a woman's head was placed on old Spanish and Cuban 2 and 4 reales, a Peruvian 2 reales cob, Guatemalan 4 reales cobs, Bust and Seated Liberty half dollars, various South American 8 reales cobs and klippe-style Mexican 8 reales of 1733 and 1734.

Costa Rica became independent in 1839 and countermarks on old Central American Republic coin designs were used until 1857 in the form of a lion in the centre. Gold 1/2 escudo and escudo pieces were also stamped, apart from some British 6 pences and shillings.

The Costa Rican currency system adopted peso- and centavo-based monetary system in 1865. Since then, counterstamped coins were not struck.