A "rare" opportunity to purchase personal items belonging to Che Guevara and Fidel Castro will arise next week. Bristol auctioneer Paul Fraser Collectibles will be auctioning off items including Che Guevara's fishing rod, water bottle and cigar lighter, which he reportedly bought at Shannon Airport duty free.
Among the items belonging to Fidel Castro are a cigar box he used to avoid being assassinated and a cigar box with secret doors, which he is said to have used to smuggle messages out of prison. A spokesperson for the auctioneer said: "You rarely see Castro's possessions for sale, and Guevara's never."
The auction takes place online and closes on June 23. It will feature a total of 40 lots of "never-before-seen Cuban history" listed below, with one in particular expecting to fetch six figures.
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Auctioneers say the collection was acquired by the present owner at the estate sale of Fidel Castro's mistress Natty Revuelta Clews, between December 2015 and July 2016.
The items up for auction
- Che Guevara's "lucky" cigar lighter that he bought at Shannon Airport, Ireland. Estimate: £4,000+
Fidel Castro’s secret message cigar box with hidden doors, and secret letter, used by Castro to organise the Cuban revolution while in prison from 1953-1955. Estimate: £100,000+
Che Guevara's personal water bottle from the Cuban revolution, signed by Guevara through fear of contracting malaria by using the wrong bottle. Estimate: £10,000+
Fidel Castro's assassination-prevention cigar box. Castro signed the cigar box to mark it as his. Only he and his closest security team members could touch it and this minimised the risk of the CIA planting a bomb or poisoned cigar in the box. Estimate: £30,000+
130 original print photos of Fidel Castro, Raul Castro and Che Guevara - 30 of them never-before-seen and 73 of the original prints were taken by Castro's personal photographer, Alberto Korda. Estimate: £50,000+
Che Guevara's marlin fishing rod. Estimate: £10,000+
Fidel Castro's personal ashtray. Estimate: £10,000+
Fidel Castro's personal machete. Estimate: £7,000+
Che Guevara's personal signed Cuba flag from the Bay of Pigs invasion. Estimate: £20,000+
Paul Fraser, founder of Just Collecting, said: “The word to sum up this auction is 'personal'. These aren't just pieces Castro and Guevara briefly touched or signed.
"These items were their personal property, used by these extraordinary figures of 20th century history on a daily basis and that makes this auction unique. I'm expecting huge interest, because after this auction there is nothing else of this magnitude set to emerge ever again.
"If you're a Cuba collector, this is the auction you've been waiting for."
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