Collection

The numismatic collection of the Central Bank Museums is an important representation of the different issuances of coins and bills made in Costa Rica.  It also contains an important number of tokens (private coins used especially to pay agricultural laborers in coffee work), which allow us to complete the panorama of monetary circulation in this country throughout history. 

The collection is built around 1200 examples of coins that date from 1516 until the present.  It contains coins used during the time of the conquest and the colonial period such as gold excelentes, escudos and onzas, and silver reals; coins from the republican period, among which we can find gold escudos, onzas and pesos as well as silver reals and centavos; and, as part of the recent monetary history, the Colón, established as the official currency in 1896.   Complementing this collection is an important number of blank coins, test pieces and proofs that gave origin to the coins that were circulated in this country, as well as moulds (pieces of steel which made the engravings on the coins).

The collection of banknotes contains more than 800 examples issued by various banking companies and the Republican Government, from 1858 until the present.  It has the distinction of containing the most important group of banknotes with serial number 01, from banks such as Banco Anglo, the Bank of Costa Rica, International Bank, Mercantile Bank, Commercial Bank and the Central Bank of Costa Rica.  This has been made possible thanks to the donation of the private collection of Mr. Jaime Solera Bennett, made by his family in 1997. 

Finally, the collection of tokens contains around 1700 tokens representative of different coffee farms and other companies that used this type of private money.

These collections are studied to gain knowledge about the history of currency in Costa Rica, its relation to the economy, politics and cultural development, that is, the particular context in which it circulated and thus, to spread this knowledge to the Costa Rican and international community, through exhibitions, publications, and educational activities oriented towards a diverse public.