Set Description
The "Cristobal Colon" gold set is one of the most popular gold sets for collectors of Costa Rican coins. All the denominations are commonly available, both in private sales and public auctions. As of November 2015, over 400 hundred coins of this set with all the denominations have been slabbed by NGC, which makes it by far the most slabbed gold set of Costa Rica. This set was originally authorized by the Government of Costa Rica in a Decree dated October 24, 1896 under the Rafael Yglesias Administration. The coins were minted both in San José and the Philadelphia Mint in the United States.
These coins have in the obverse the National Coat of Arms with the words "República de Costa Rica", as well as the date. On the Reverse, it appears the bust of Christopher Columbus, looking at the right side of the coins, with "RY" in a small print on the right of the chest of Columbus with the words "América Central" and the value in letters. The Diameter and weight of these coins is the following: ¢20 colones (27mm, 15.56 grams), ¢10 colones (21mm, 7.78 grams), ¢5 colones (18mm, 3.89 grams) and ¢2 colones (14mm, 1.55 grams).
Beside the slots of this series, it is known that for the 2 colones series, there was also a Proof Pattern dated 1897 with a mintage of only 500 coins. It is interesting to mention that the "Ley de la Moneda" of 1900 authorized the mintage of gold coins by private persons with the permit by the Secretary of the Treasury. According to Raul Gurdian (Contribución al Estudio de las Monedas de Costa Rica, 2nd edition 1997, page 154) and Emmanuel Barrantes Zamora (El Patrón Oro y el Bimetalismo en Costa Rica (1896-1920): sus contradicciones, that appeared in Nueva Historia Monetaria de Costa Rica de la Colonia a la decada de 1930, Editorial UCR, 2012, pages 235-236) , this permit was given to the ¢2 colones of 1915, 1916, 1921, 1922, 1926 and 1928, as well as to the ¢10 colones of 1900. The persons and banks that ordered this private mintage is detailed in the respective slot of each of these coins.
Finally, as for this specific set of coins that appear in this NGC Registry, all of them have either the highest or very close to the highest grades given by NGC. All 5 coins the Columbus series that have been slabbed at the NGC World Coins Census at MS 67 (including one double), the highest grade, all belong to this set. I hope that you enjoy the pictures and the descriptions of each of these coins that have been updated as of November 2015.
Piefort
