10 Centavos

Guatemala's silver coinage of this period was struck almost entirely at the Philadelphia Mint, a dependency that reflected the country's limited domestic minting infrastructure throughout the early twentieth century. The two subtype variants (239.1 and 239.2) differ principally in the relief and detailing of the dies, changes introduced as Philadelphia periodically re-engraved the working hubs. The .720 fineness matches the reduced silver standard adopted across much of Central America after World War I, when rising silver prices made the older, finer alloys economically unsustainable.

The series spans a quarter century precisely because no political disruption — including the long Ubico dictatorship from 1931 to 1944 — prompted a redesign.