Dollars, Pesos and Pieces of Eight

During the last half of the 1800's, many of the plantation owners in Guatemala were short on cash. Supplies had to bought and hauled in by cart, coffee and bananas had to freighted out by ship or railroad and the workers, above all, had to be paid. The currency available or the denomination of the money varied: would a Yankee ship captain accept Gautemalan reales or would he be happy with Mexican pesos?

Some of the larger fincas (farms ) had their own company stores, for the basic needs of their workers. The hired help stayed on the farm and showed up for work as needed, but there was a small problem: how or what to pay them with? A few of the more enlightened managers came up with a simple and elegant solution: mint their own money, pay the workers with the private pesos and keep the real reales for themselves. The store turned a profit, the peons were placated and the planters were pleased.

Today, in some of the markets or in the museums, the examples of these early coins can still be seen: some are simple and some are ornate. The good ones look as impressive as the real thing, another vestige of a bygone era when money really was silver or gold and not some lightweight metal that passed for coinage.