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20 Quetzales Banco Central de Guatemala, 1st. print
| Issuer | Banco Central de Guatemala |
|---|---|
| Year | 1927-1945 |
| Type | Standard circulation banknote |
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| Obverse description | Blue intaglio print on yellow and green guilloche underprint. Portrait of President José Maria Orellana at left, a vignette of Mercury at center left, and a quetzal bird at right. The overall layout follows the classic De La Rue engraved style of the period, with intricate lathe-work borders framing the central design elements. |
|---|---|
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| Reverse description | Printed entirely in blue, the reverse centers on a detailed intaglio vignette of the Palace of the Captains-General set against a mountainous background, flanked by elaborate guilloche rosettes. A large blank oval cartouche occupies the left field, while the numeral "20" is set within a fine lathe-work medallion at lower right. The bank title appears in a bold panel at top and the denomination legend in a decorative tablet at the base. |
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| Comments |
The Banco Central de Guatemala was established by law in 1926 as part of a sweeping monetary reform pushed through with the direct involvement of Edwin Kemmerer, the Princeton economist whose stabilization missions reshaped central banking across Latin America in the 1920s. This note belongs to the inaugural series that followed, with De La Rue in London producing the plates — a relationship Guatemala would maintain for decades.
The Q20 was a high-denomination instrument in a country where most daily commerce moved in fractions of a quetzal. Notes at this level circulated primarily through commercial banks and government accounts rather than retail trade, which accounts for the relatively low survival rate of genuinely circulated examples versus those held in institutional reserves.