Catalog
5 Pesos
| Issuer | Banco Comercial de Guatemala |
|---|---|
| Year | 1892 |
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| Reference(s) | P#S132 |
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|---|---|
| Obverse lettering | EL BANCO COMERCIAL DE GUATEMALA Pagará al portador en moneda Efectiva CINCO PESOS Guatemala Directores Gerente |
| Reverse description | The reverse is executed entirely in a single dark tone, with an elaborate guilloche lathe-work border framing the entire field. At centre, an oval medallion within dense geometric underprint bears the inscriptions 'BANCO COMERCIAL' and 'CINCO PESOS' and 'DE GUATEMALA', flanked on both sides by large numeral '5' counters set within intricate engine-turned rosette panels. The word 'CINCO' appears in a repeating microtext band along the top and bottom margins. |
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| Comments |
The Banco Comercial de Guatemala was one of several private Guatemalan banks chartered under the 1874 banking law that briefly allowed competitive note issuance — a system dismantled after the state moved toward centralized monetary control in the early twentieth century. By the 1920s, most private bank issues had been retired or demonetized, making survivors from the 1890s genuinely scarce.
American Bank Note Company produced this series from its New York facilities at a time when ABNC held near-total dominance over Central American private bank contracts. Their intaglio work for Guatemalan clients during this period is among the finer commercial printing of the era.