1 Peso - Rafael Carrera Pattern strike

Rafael Carrera, the illiterate former swineherd who became Guatemala's first president-for-life, was consolidating conservative rule in 1860 when this pattern was produced. Guatemala had no functioning mint of its own at the time, and coinage experiments of this period were largely exploratory — the country relied heavily on foreign silver in circulation. Copper denominations were periodically proposed but never adopted for regular issue, leaving pattern strikes like this one as the only physical record of those attempts.

KM#Pn3 is one of very few documented copper patterns from Carrera's administration. Survivors are essentially confined to institutional collections and the occasional specialized auction.