1 Quetzal Historical Coins

The quetzal was introduced as Guatemala's currency unit in 1925, replacing the peso at par as part of a monetary reform pushed through by President José María Orellana — whose portrait the coin's namesake denomination carried for decades. The reform pegged the quetzal to the US dollar at 1:1, a rate that held with remarkable stability for over sixty years before collapsing under the economic pressures of the 1980s civil conflict.

KM#291 is a commemorative restrike rather than a circulation issue, produced for the collector market with no meaningful role in daily commerce.