5 Pesos Banco Americano de Guatemala

Banco Americano de Guatemala was one of several private banks authorized to issue currency under Guatemala's 1874 banking law, a system that persisted well into the twentieth century despite repeated proposals for central bank consolidation. The American interest in the bank's name was not incidental — the institution had significant ties to foreign commercial capital during a period when United States businesses were aggressively expanding their footprint in Central America.

Waterlow & Sons printed for dozens of Latin American issuers simultaneously, and the S-series Pick numbering signals this is a private commercial bank note rather than a government issue — a distinction that mattered enormously during the monetary reforms that eventually ended Guatemala's free banking period in 1926 with the establishment of the Banco Central.