Postage stamps and postal history of Costa Rica change in currency from "Reales" to the new Pesos and "Centavos", the issue of 1863 was surcharged with new values for postal use: 1 Centavos, 2 Centavos, 5 Centavos (all over the Medio Real stamp), 10 Centavos (over Dos Reales) and 20 Centavos (over Cuatro Reales). The 5, 10 and 20 Centavos were also surcharged "U.P.U." Costa Rican stamps were issued overprinted "Guanacaste" in 1885-89 following war with Nicaragua over the sovereignty of Guanacaste. The first issue in the new "Colón" currency was dated 1900 and put into circulation in 1901. It consists of ten stamps with values ranging from
Cross of Gold speech caused by the Napoleonic Wars caused United States gold coins to be worth more as bullion than as money, and they vanished from circulation. Governmental response to this shortage was hampered by the fact that officials did not clearly understand what had happened. In 1830, Treasury Secretary Samuel D. Ingham proposed adjusting the ratio between gold and silver in US currency to 15.8:1, which had for some time been the ratio in Europe. It was not until 1834 that Congress acted, changing the gold/silver ratio to 16.002:1. This was close enough to the market value to make it uneconomic to