Complete Colon Set 1935-1998
Private
Updated:
6/3/2026
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On October 24, 1896, the Government of Costa Rica, under the Administration of President Rafael Yglesias Castro, issued a decree, changing the monetary system from “Pesos” to “Colones”, where the monetary unit was called “Colon” and it was divided in 100 centimos. The first set that was minted under this decree, was the "Cristobal Colon" gold set is one of the most popular gold sets for collectors of Costa Rican coins, which started in 1897 through 1928. The decree indicated that the gold coins will have the Coat of Arms with the legend “República de Costa Rica” on the obverse, while they would have the bust of Christopher Columbus with the legend “America Central” on the reverse. The silver coins will have the same obverse as the gold coins, but in the reverse, they will have two coffee branches and in the center of these, the value of the coin is expressed in Centimos with the upper part reading “America Central” and the lower part the alloy of the coin and the initials of the Assayer. The first silver coin that was minted under this decree was the “50 Centimos 1902”, which is the equivalent to ½ Colon. This coin was minted by the “Casa de la Moneda de Costa Rica” (Official mint of Costa Rica) with the initials of the Assayer Carlos Yglesias “CY” and the following year 1903, the “50 Centimos” coins were minted with he initials of the Assayer “Jesus Cubero Vargas”.
During the first years of the decree, only denominations of 2, 5, 10 and 50 Centimos were issued. Higher denominations were issued in paper money, so, the “1 Colon” coins would not be minted until several years later. However, before the first “1 Colon” would be minted, there was a devaluation in Costa Rica in 1923, where the Government decided to counterstamp old “25 centimos” coins to double its denomination to “50 centimos”, and decided to counterstamp the old “50 centimos” coins to the first “Un Colon” coin. In this moment, it was the Banco Internacional de Costa Rica, the entity in charge of minting coins and printing paper money. In a decree of July 10, 1923, this Bank was authorized to counterstamp the silver coins, so, in one side they would be counterstamped with “1923” and on the other side they would be counterstamped respectively with “50 centimos” or “Un Colon”. According to the 43rd Edition of the “Standard Catalog of World Coins”, when referring to this devaluation it reads: “In the financially stressful years between 1914 and 1925, many Latin American countries saw their currencies lose much of its former purchasing power. Governments reacted in several ways: In Peru, Chile, Brazil and most of Central America, this took the form of devaluing their monetary unit relative to such standards as the U.S. dollar and Swiss franc. Costa Rica began issuing coins of .500 fine silver and brass to replace the .900 fine silver issues of the past. A decree of 1923 also made provisions for the old .900 fine silver coins to be revalued, doubling their previous face values, by dated counterstamping conducted at the San Jose Mint through 1923 and into 1924.”
It was until August 22, 1935, that the Government finally made the decision to mint new coins that would substitute all the coins that have been counterstamped in 1923, as well as all the paper money of “50 Centimos” and “Un Colon” that have been deteriorating. On this date the Government issued a new decree that authorized the minting of 350,000 coins of “Colon” to be minted in the Philadelphia Mint in the United States. These coins were going to be minted in nickel and copper instead of silver. On the obverse, these coins were going to have the Coat of Arms with the legend “República de Costa Rica” and the date “1935”. On the Reverse they would have two coffee branches and in the center the value of the coin, on the upper part they could have the legend “America Central” and on the lower part the initials of Banco Internacional de Costa Rica “BICR”. By decree number 2 of January 21, 1936, all 350,000 coins of “Un Colon” each were authorized to circulate. This was the first “Un Colon” coin that was issued in Costa Rica with no counterstamps. It took the Government of Costa Rica 40 years, since the decree changing the monetary system from Pesos de Colones, to be able to issue the first coin of “Colon”.
This set, “Colon, 1935-1998, Circulation Issue, Including Varieties.”, will include all 23 “Colon” coins that were authorized by the Costa Rican Government during the 20th Century. As indicated above, the first coin that was authorized is dated 1935 and the last coin is dated 1998. I have tried to obtain the best coins available for each of the dates. Today, I have 22 of those 23 coins known as “Top Pop”, and 9 of them are the sole highest grades in existence. The only coin that doesn’t have this denomination is the “Colon 1978”, which is tied to the second highest grade. I hope the NGC reader will enjoy the description of this set. Since this set was opened by NGC in 2021, it has been awarded “Best in Category”.
Piefort, October 2023.
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Complete Colon Set 1935-1998
By Piefort
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