The Costa Rican Colon, named after Admiral Christopher Columbus, is the official currency of the Republic of Costa Rica in Central America. Its symbol is a letter C crossed by two vertical slashes “₡”. Its ISO 4217 code is CRC. During the colony, Spanish currency circulated in Costa Rica and after its independence in 1821, the usual currency was first the real and then the peso. On October 24, 1896, during the government of Rafael Iglesias Castro, the “Talón de Oro” law was enacted, which established the Colón as the monetary unit, following a trend of the time on the occasion of the celebrations of the IV centenary of the discovery of America.

The coin is divided into 100 parts called céntimos. The current coins in circulation are of 5, 10, 25, 50, 100 and 500 colones. The denominations (silver coins) of 1, 2, 5, 10 and 20 colones, the Central Bank of Costa Rica made an effort to withdraw them from circulation and now these can only be found in the hands of collectors and no longer have value in the market, except for the silver coins of 5 and 10 colones, which are still in use. In addition, there are bills of 1,000, 2,000, 5,000, 10,000, 20,000 and 50,000. The 50,000 bill is currently not widely used in Costa Rica due to its rarity and the fact that few stores accept it, but it still exists and can be used for very large payments.

Commonly, Costa Ricans call the 100 colones coins: “a tile” (previously they referred to the 100 colones bills in this way), while the 1000 colones bill is called: “a red” and the 5000 colones bill: “a toucan” (because the previous 5000 colones bill had a print on the back that had an ecological highlight of the image of this bird, family of the Costa Rican fauna, accompanied by a jaguar, a species that has also inhabited several areas of the country). Also, instead of saying colones they sometimes say “pesos” (formerly the local currency), or “cañas”.

The coins of 5, 10 and 25 colones do not have much economic value, however there are new issues in lighter material and alloy, even their size is smaller compared to the previous issue. The one colón coin, although it has not been officially withdrawn, is extremely rare. On the other hand, the 50, 100 and 500 Colones coins are the most commonly used.

Source: Wikipedia