Coins

Colonial cobs, Federation coins and the 0.720 quetzal series:

are the three groups most Guatemalan collections are built around. The cobs are the hammer-struck coins of the colonial mint, irregular lumps of silver marked G for Guatemala from 1733 and NG once the mint followed the capital to its new site after the earthquakes of 1773. The same NG turns up on the coins of the Central American Federation, with the sun rising behind a row of mountains, and on the reales and pesos of the early republic. The quetzal brought machine-struck silver in 0.720 fineness from 1925 to 1964: the quetzal on its pillar, the National Palace on the twenty-five centavos of 1943, the Quiriguá monolith on the ten and the Monja Blanca orchid on the fifty. Later circulating coins are base metal, with Banco de Guatemala commemoratives in silver and gold alongside them. A family jar usually holds a little of each, and it often surfaces with the rest of a household’s antiques.

A date set, a single rarity or an ounce of silver:

each calls for a different kind of buying. The 0.720 series is completed date by date, and for the common years it pays to wait for the cleanest example. A key coin such as the 1925 silver quetzal is decided on certification and provenance, not on photos. Bullion, whether American Silver Eagles, Mexican Libertads or Guatemalan silver centavos sold by weight, follows the metal price and rarity barely enters into it.

A worn real and a 1925 quetzal:

sit at opposite ends of the scale. A worn, ordinary real from around 1900 goes for something like Q20 to Q30, while a 1925 silver quetzal starts around Q20,000 at auction and climbs well beyond that in a top grade. Between the two, scarce dates and condition do the work: the same coin unworn can be worth many times a tired one. Treat posts promising Q200 for an everyday twenty-five centavos with suspicion, because the buyers behind them are rarely reachable. A coin still turning up in your change is worth its face unless it is a scarce date such as the 1998 peace quetzal or carries a genuine minting error.

Cleaned surfaces, cast copies and fake slabs:

are where collectors lose money. A polished or dipped coin shows fine parallel hairlines and an even, too-bright shine right down into the lettering, and collectors pay far less for it, so “I cleaned it up” is never a selling point. Cast copies of colonial cobs, eight-real pieces and the 1925 quetzal circulate: look for a grainy surface, soft lettering, a seam around the edge and a weight that does not match the catalogue. A coin that sticks to a magnet is not silver. On a cob an odd shape is normal; a crisp, perfectly centred design on a perfectly round one is not. Graded coins come sealed in NGC or PCGS holders, much like graded trading cards, and the holders are faked too. Look up the certification number on the grader’s own database and check its photo against the coin in front of you. An off-centre strike or a doubled date happens at the mint; a dent, a scrape or a coin flattened on a railway line happened later and adds nothing.

Photos of both faces of the coin you are selling:

taken in daylight, without flash, on a plain dark cloth, let a collector judge it before making the trip. Add close shots of the date, the mintmark and the edge, and the weight in grams if your kitchen scale reads to a decimal. Clean nothing first. With an inherited jar, pull out the coins marked 0.720 and anything older, list the scarce pieces singly and offer the rest as a lot. Keep coins out of soft plastic flips, which leave a green film over the years. Someone driving in from Zacapa to look at a colonial cob will bring a loupe and want to weigh it in front of you, so have the scale out and a window with good light.