Salvadoran colón

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Colón is also the name of Costa Rica's currency. For this, see Costa Rican colón.

The colón was the currency of El Salvador between 1919 and 2001. The colón was divided into 100 centavos. Its ISO 4217 code was SVC. The plural is colones in Spanish but English-speakers often say colons instead. The currency was named after Christopher Columbus, known as Cristóbal Colón in Spanish.

The colón replaced the peso at par and was replaced by the United States dollar at an exchange rate of 8.75 colones to the dollar (see dollarization).

[edit] Coins

Because the colón replaced the peso at par, 1 and 5 centavos coins issued before 1919 continued to be issued without design change after the colón's introduction. Additional denominations of 2, 3, 10, 25 and 50 centavos and 1 colón were later introduced.

[edit] Banknotes

From 1934, the Central Reserve Bank issued paper money in denominations between 1 and 200 colónes. At the time that the dollar was adopted, banknotes in circulation were 5, 10, 25, 50, 100 and 200 colones.