1 Real

Guatemala's silver reales were a colonial-era holdover still circulating in the 1870s while the country's monetary system lurched toward decimalization. The Reform of 1871 that brought Justo Rufino Barrios to power accelerated pressure to modernize the currency, and this series was struck during exactly that transitional window — old denominations, new republic, the peso decimal system waiting in the wings.

KM#148.1 distinguishes the Philadelphia-assisted coinage from later domestic strikes.