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1 Quetzal
| Issuer | Banco Central de Guatemala |
|---|---|
| Year | 1934-1945 |
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| Printer | Waterlow & Sons Limited |
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|---|---|
| Obverse lettering | BANCO CENTRAL DE GUATEMALA GUATEMALA CENTRO AMERICA Pagara al portador en efectivo a la vista y ala par Un Quetzal (Translation: Central Bank of Guatemala Guatemala, Central America Pay the bearer in cash at sight and at par One Quetzal) |
| Reverse description | The central vignette presents an intaglio engraving of the south face of Monolith F from the Maya archaeological site of Quiriguá, the tall carved stela rising amid tropical foliage. Elaborate guilloche rosettes enclosing the numeral '1' occupy the left and right panels, with scrollwork cartouches flanking the central frame. The printer's imprint 'Waterlow & Sons Limited, Londres' appears in small lettering at the bottom centre. |
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| Comments |
Waterlow & Sons printed this series for Guatemala throughout the mid-1930s and into the war years, a period when the Banco Central was itself a relatively new institution — it had only been established in 1926 following U.S.-advised monetary reforms under Lázaro Chacón that dismantled the old commercial bank note system. The Quetzal as a currency unit dated only to 1925, pegged at par with the U.S. dollar, and these notes were central to enforcing that discipline during years of considerable political turbulence, including the long Ubico dictatorship.
Waterlow's relationship with Guatemalan note production extended across multiple denominations in this period, though the firm's reputation would later be severely damaged by the Artur Virgílio Alves Reis forgery scandal — by the time this series was printing, Waterlow had already lost the Bank of Portugal litigation in 1932.