5 Pesos

Guatemala's Tesorería Nacional — the national treasury, not a central bank — issued paper money directly in this period, an arrangement that reflected the country's underdeveloped financial infrastructure rather than any formal monetary policy. The American Bank Note Company held a near-monopoly on Latin American government securities printing through the late nineteenth century, and Guatemalan notes of this era were produced in New York and shipped south, sometimes months before their official issue dates.

The 1882 series predates the establishment of the Banco de Guatemala by decades. Peg instability against silver and the early tremors of the coffee-boom economy made these treasury notes functionally unreliable almost from issue.