Costa Rica 5 Colones 1950,s Rarity??
PROMETHIUS88
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Sorting thru stacks of foreign currency that I picked up a few years back to price for our new shop and I ran across these 9/7/55 Costa Rica 5 Colones note. I can't find another A7 listed or sold and there's only a couple others of any of the 1950's series. Are these really that rare? I did see a well worn 1953 that sold for $40 but not much other reference info online, that I can find.
Anyone here with any insight?
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I would say several of these small nations (like Costa Rica, Dominican Republic, Guatemala) have much lower numbers issued but like African nations (certain workhorse denominations circulated in extreme humidity) its the numbers that survive in good condition that make them tough to rare. And the farther back you go, the harder they get in decent grades (like EF- UNC) so that drives up prices even for circulated examples. Numista's entry for P-220 is here & they have given the note a NRI (Numista Rarity Index) of 92. I'd say that's a pretty tough-to-rare 5 Colones. I mostly just see the 1965 version & to see "reproductions" being peddled on eBay also would verify that its tough! Nice example too!
**https://sites.google.com/view/notaphilycculture/collecting-banknotes **
Thank you so much for the response. I use Numista a lot for reference, but, to be totally honest, I never noticed the rarity rating!
That will be beneficial in the future dealing with foreign coins and currency.
It's not gonna make me instantly wealthy, but it's always nice to find something a little better when you expect everything in the giant stack to be <$10.
Tim
I use both the BNM (Banknote Museum) & cross-reference with Numista NRI to help guide my decisions a lot. I started a thread on Overlooked World notes b/c there's actually many UNC world notes out there that had low # issued & are rather scarce (& fly under most collector's radars). The only thing you must be careful is that sometimes the moderators lump 2 separate issues (2 P#) under one type of note (like the Dominican Republic 100 Pesos (P-167 printed by BNA with P-171 printed by TDLR) which is annoying & this can skew the NRI so it becomes almost meaningless.
But back to your P-220 which has excellent eye appeal & appears VF to EF. It will be very popular for two reasons:
it's classic design elements presents a coffee worker on the reverse
A) it is printed by the American Bank Note Co (ABNC)
I know of a PMF member/collector who is very keen to acquire Coffee themed notes & he sometimes posts specimens b/c the issued varieties seldom come up for auction (& better examples are so scarce).
Good luck & happy to hear you got a break on your bulk purchase.
**https://sites.google.com/view/notaphilycculture/collecting-banknotes **