Costa Rica Stamps – First Issue: medio real (Scott 1) with broken plate…USED!

Quick trivia: How many medio real stamps were printed? R/5,750,000…yes, almost 6 million! Now, 3 million stamps are -or were- Scott 1 and 2.75 million of Scott 1a.

But why there are 2 types of medio real? the history says that because of the quantity of stamps being printed, the plate started cracking. at the beginning the crack was visible only on the position 1 of the plate, then it advanced to the position 11 and then to the 21st. At this point the government decided to order another plate. It had slight variances and that’s why we now have Scott 1a.

Returning to the broken plate, it’s usual to find unused copies, but once in a while, used copies come by. It’s right to say that used copies are not super rare, but they’re not easy neither.

medio real

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