Costa Rican peso Costa Rican peso The peso was the currency of Costa Rica between 1850 and 1896. It was initially subdivided into 8 "reales" and circulated alongside the earlier currency, the real, until 1864, when Costa Rica decimalized and the peso was subdivided into 100 "centavos". The peso was replaced by the colón at par in 1896 In 1850, silver coins were issued in denominations of , ⅛ and ¼ peso. In 1864, silver coins were introduced in denominations of 25 centavos and 1 peso. These were followed the next year by cupro-nickel ¼ and 1 centavos and silver 5, 10 and
World currency Habsburg territories. Prior to and during most of the 19th century, international trade was denominated in terms of currencies that represented weights of gold. Most national currencies at the time were in essence merely different ways of measuring gold weights (much as the yard and the meter both measure length and are related by a constant conversion factor). Hence some assert that gold was the world's first global currency. The emerging collapse of the international gold standard around the time of World War I had significant implications for global trade. Before 1944, the world reference currency was the United Kingdom's