5 Pesos

The Banco Internacional de Guatemala was one of several private commercial banks authorized to issue currency under Guatemala's 1874 banking law, which deliberately fragmented note issuance among competing institutions rather than establishing a single central bank. This arrangement lasted until the Guatemalan government consolidated and eventually nationalized note issue in the early twentieth century. Private bank notes from this period are consequently short-lived issues — the window between a bank's founding and the end of its issuing privilege was often less than two decades.

The American Bank Note Company imprint places this squarely in the era when virtually every Latin American private bank of any ambition contracted with the major New York security printers. ABNC plates were often shared or adapted across multiple clients, worth checking against related Guatemalan issues of the same period.