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100 Quetzales Banco de Guatemala, 2nd. type
| Issuer | Banco de Guatemala |
|---|---|
| Year | 1955-1959 |
| Type | Standard circulation banknote |
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| Obverse description | Black and grey intaglio printing on light blue underprint, with a central vignette of a Nahuala indigenous man facing left and a Quetzal bird in flight at upper centre. The issuer name arches across the top, with the country name and regional designation below; face value numerals appear at all four corners and flanking the central vignette, with the value in words along the lower centre. Six-digit serial numbers are printed in black at upper left and lower right, with three facsimile signatures and an authorisation date along the lower portion, the date rotated 90°; the printer's imprint runs along the bottom margin. |
|---|---|
| Obverse lettering | 100 BANCO DE GUATEMALA GUATEMALA, CENTRO AMÉRICA 148728 Autorización de 16 Enero 1957 INDIO DE NAHUALA PRESIDENTE GERENTE PRESIDENTE DEL TRIBUNAL DE CTAS. CIEN QUETZALES WATERLOW & SONS LIMITED, LONDRES (Translation: Bank of Guatemala Guatemala, Central America Authorization of January 16th., 1957 Nahuala indian man President, Manager, President of Accounts Tribunal One Hundred Quetzales Waterlow & Sons Limited, London.) |
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| Comments |
Waterlow & Sons produced this series for Guatemala during a stretch of significant political instability — the 1954 CIA-backed coup that removed Jacobo Árbenz had only just reshuffled the country's financial administration, and the Banco de Guatemala was issuing under a newly compliant government. Whether that political rupture directly influenced the contract with Waterlow is not documented, but the timing is tight.
Waterlow lost its reputation catastrophically in 1929 after the Reis affair — a Portuguese forger named Artur Virgílio Alves Reis tricked the firm into printing unauthorized escudo notes. The company survived but spent decades rebuilding institutional trust, which makes their Latin American contracts of the 1950s partly a story of reputational recovery.