1 Quetzal

The Banco de Guatemala was established in 1946 following the dissolution of the Banco Central de Guatemala, itself a casualty of the reformist Arévalo government's effort to create a genuinely independent central bank. This note falls squarely in the period of relative institutional stability under Castillo Armas, who had overthrown the Árbenz government in 1954 with CIA backing — a political rupture that left the banking system intact but the country's broader economic direction sharply redirected.

ABNC held the Guatemalan printing contract through much of the mid-twentieth century, and the P#36 series shows their characteristic intaglio quality. The watermark on this series is embedded in the paper rather than applied separately — worth examining against light before handling.