Description
This is an excessively rare coin! The 4 reales denomination is the scarcest of all sizes among the pillar style coinage. The Guatemalan 4 Reale is the scarcest of all the pillar type 4 reales.
The Guatemala Mint just began issuing Pillar or Columnario style coinage in 1754. Prior to that, the mint was striking “cob” style coinage. There are two varieties of 1754 four reale issued in Guatemala. These are distinguished by the numeral 5 in the date. The presumed earlier type (and as such among the first pillar coins struck in Guatemala) has an ‘Arabic’ style 5 in the date. The second type has the ‘Spanish’ style 5 in the date, which looks a bit like a “S”. The Arabic Style 5 is far and away the scarcest of the two varieties.
This coin is a first-year-of-issue scarce variety of a scarce denomination from a scarce country! Rare indeed!
The coin has its issues. It is lightly bent and has a bit of graffiti on both obverse and reverse.
The coin also comes with a 1960’s era Kraft envelope. The envelope has the coin mis-attributed to Mexico and is priced at $1.00.
