World coins chat: Guatemala

The first coins of Guatemala date back from the 17th century, when it was part of the Spanish Empire as The Captaincy of Guatemala until the Central American Republic became independent in 1821. During that time, the Spanish Real was the currency (16 Reales = 1 Escudo and 8 Reales = 1 Peso) but there were also Guatemalan coins from that time. My question is: how can you see that these coins are Guatemalan? They look pretty Spanish to me. Maybe someone here has the answer.

After the breakup of the Central American Republic in 1842, Guatemala continued to use the CAR Real until it introduced its own Peso in 1859 with new coins introduced. Guatemala decimalised with centavos but continued to issue coins in Real as well until 1902. A Peso was worth exactly 5 French Francs in those days, which made it worth slightly less than a US Dollar.

In 1925, the Peso was renamed to Quetzal, which is the name of a colourful bird and a national symbol for the country. The peg with the French Franc was replaced by the US Dollar and at least domestically the Quetzal was equal to a dollar until 1987. Current exchange rate is 7.8 Quetzal per $ which makes it the most stable Latin currency over the last 100 years (most other Latin currencies turned into confetti at least once).

I only have 7 Guatemalan coins in my collection, 6 of them being the modern series and one very nice tiny silver 1/4 Real from 1899.

Older Guatemalan coins are quite hard to find. The Real coins from around 1900 are really beautiful. Guatemala used 72% silver for all coins from 5 centavos until the 1960's.

https://en.numista.com/catalogue/guatemala-1.html

I am blessed to have received four Guatemalan coins from my Grandfather that he had from his military career in 1939 before WWII broke out. I didn't know how special they were until later in life but now I am glad they are a part of my collection. I also got a few Honduran coins from him. That's all he had after so many years, but he spent time in just about every south and Central American nation before WWII, he was a pilot and they were photographing the globe.

 He told me one story, I am not sure where in Central America, but he had a pet monkey and when he was off flying, some of the other guys cooked and ate it. I could tell his feelings were still pretty hurt after so many years, but its a pretty crazy story.
 I wish I could have known to ask him more story's but I was so young, I have another story about him when we get to Venezuela

I have a mild interest in Guatemalan coins because of all the slight variations they have. My theory is that whenever a new military government took power, they would throw out all the old dies and ask the hard-working Mint staff to engrave entirely new ones.

My "variety set" of centavos is nowhere complete, but look at all these minor variations:



Bonus: if you take a close look at the 1953 issue, you can quite clearly tell that they engraved the "19" in the date ahead of time so that every year they would only have to bother with changing the last two digits of the date (instead of all four). The "53" looks totally different from the "19".


Basically, weird stuff went on at the Guatemalan mint.

Oh, and I quite like the calligraphic design of the modern 1-quetzal coin. It's one of the very few coins to explicitly commemorate the end of a conflict - most countries pretend like their civil wars never happened (or were actually about states' rights) so it's kind of refreshingly honest.

I only have 1 guatemalan coin:
https://en.numista.com/catalogue/pieces70956.html
It is in bad condition, but for 3 bucks it is pretty good.

Quote: eitan190I only have 1 guatemalan coin:
https://en.numista.com/catalogue/pieces70956.html
It is in bad condition, but for 3 bucks it is pretty good.

Thanks, that link answered my question! Apparently the NG mint mark means Nueva Granada which was back then the capital of Guatemala. But it looks the same as a Spanish coin.

Nice to read those stories redsmithstudio! Looking forward to Venezuela but only after Central America and Caribbean.

I guess my story about Venezuela isn't actually a coins story, but I do have a coin story about Cuba from when I was there, when we get to Cuba that is.

  I was also in Mexico about 14-15 years ago, and I was collecting one of every type I could find, and I just so happened to notice a coin sitting in my Mexican friends house who I was staying with. It was from Guatemala, and he let me have it. I was not a knowledgeable coin collector then, it was only in 2010 when I discovered Numista that I started really learning about the coins I had. Its when I started cataloging my collection here that I realized my random coin was silver. https://en.numista.com/catalogue/pieces8773.html
  As an Ignorant coin collector it had never occurred to me that the world was on a silver standard and many world coins before 1960 were silver, not just US. So thanks Numista

  Its only VG but I am happy to have it, in those days I only got the coins I found, and I didn't have many.  Some of the coins we get are from such random places.

We're learning so much thanks to you guys, about coinage from Latin America... My only Guatemala coins are very modern, no valuable interest.

Quote: jokinen

Quote: eitan190I only have 1 guatemalan coin:
https://en.numista.com/catalogue/pieces70956.html
It is in bad condition, but for 3 bucks it is pretty good.

Thanks, that link answered my question! Apparently the NG mint mark means Nueva Granada which was back then the capital of Guatemala. But it looks the same as a Spanish coin.

Yeah, the only way to tell them apart is by the mintmark. If not it can be from mexico, bolivia, peru.

Didn't notice any variations in the Quetzals before! It's time to take a second look into my doubles!  

Quote: "redsmithstudios"​I guess my story about Venezuela isn't actually a coins story, but I do have a coin story about Cuba from when I was there, when we get to Cuba that is.
​
​ I was also in Mexico about 14-15 years ago, and I was collecting one of every type I could find, and I just so happened to notice a coin sitting in my Mexican friends house who I was staying with. It was from Guatemala, and he let me have it. I was not a knowledgeable coin collector then, it was only in 2010 when I discovered Numista that I started really learning about the coins I had. Its when I started cataloging my collection here that I realized my random coin was silver. https://en.numista.com/catalogue/pieces8773.html
​ As an Ignorant coin collector it had never occurred to me that the world was on a silver standard and many world coins before 1960 were silver, not just US. So thanks Numista
​
​ Its only VG but I am happy to have it, in those days I only got the coins I found, and I didn't have many. Some of the coins we get are from such random places.

​a couple of years ago I went back home and went to lake Atitlán. On of the villages around the lake is home to the woman who was the model for this coin. I looked her up and meet with her. She was so kind as to get the traditional head dress depicted in the coin and put it on. It took her about 20 minutes. The head dress is basically a long strap of cotton cloth that she wove with her hair and then coiled it around. She was 17 or so, she could not remember, when she modeled for the picture used for the coin design, and when i meet her she thought she was in her late 80s, but she wasn't sure. She looked in good health. I wonder if she's still alive...

Quote: "Dutchgalego"​Didn't notice any variations in the Quetzals before! It's time to take a second look into my doubles!  :D

​there are variations in the 1, 5, 10, 25 and 50 coins. I am not sure if there are any in the 1 Quetzal coins. These are fairly recent, since we used 50 cent and 1Quetzal banknotes. The 50 can't coins were used in the early 1900s and just came back.

Quote: "redsmithstudios"​ He told me one story, I am not sure where in Central America, but he had a pet monkey and when he was off flying, some of the other guys cooked and ate it. I could tell his feelings were still pretty hurt after so many years, but its a pretty crazy story.
​ I wish I could have known to ask him more story's but I was so young, I have another story about him when we get to Venezuela

​What a miserable story! The disappointed guys were just ....

As far as the area that interests me, it is the Captaincy coins.

Guatemalan, Mexican, Costa Rican, Bolivian, and most Latin American coins ,are my favorite to collect.
Hard to get, but when I do its like Christmas.
Im always looking for the silver coins, and early non-silver.So anybody who wants to swap or maybe sell, please contact me.
John

I have three colonial pillars from Guatemala. They are VERY hard to find. It's one of those things where, if you find one that's not terribly overpriced, you probably should get it...in any condition, you probably won't see it again for years, maybe longer.

My variants from Guatemala: