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"Cuba Socialista" Enamel Pin — Red Field with Cuban-Flag Stripes
Object/Artifact
A small square pin in inlaid enamel within a silver-tone metal frame and dividing walls. The left half is a single plain red vertical field; the right half carries five equal horizontal stripes in the order blue, white, blue, white, blue (three blue, two white) — the stripe pattern of the Cuban national flag. There is no star or lettering on the face. The reverse is stamped "HECHO EN CUBA SOCIALISTA" ("Made in Socialist Cuba").
2025.2.27
Obtained in Cuba by Anna Veltfort and brought to New York City with her when she moved back to the US.
The right field reproduces the Cuban flag's striped field (three blue stripes for the island's old divisions, two white for the purity of the independence cause). The plain red left field, read together with the reverse legend "Cuba Socialista," most plausibly stands for the red of socialism/communism joined to the national colors — a compact emblem of "Socialist Cuba." A purely stylized rendering of the whole Cuban flag (red hoist triangle squared off, lone star omitted) remains possible but is the less likely reading given the explicit socialist framing. The phrase "Cuba Socialista" itself dates the object: Fidel Castro proclaimed the Revolution's socialist character on 16 April 1961, on the eve of the Bay of Pigs, so the formulation belongs to 1961 and after.
Anna Veltfort collection
2025.2
Anna Veltfort
Gift
1960s
Cuba
Caribbean
Central America
Date: circa 1961
Inscription
back
HECHO EN CUBA SOCIALISTA
Spanish
MADE IN SOCIALIST CUBA
2 cm
2 cm
Single enamel-on-metal badge.
Metal
Metal frame and cell walls (silver/aluminum tone) with red, blue, and white enamel or enamel-like inlay (material tentative; matte, slightly chalky surfaces could indicate cold enamel/resin rather than vitreous enamel).
Good
Anna Veltfort
owner
Havana
Cuba
Caribbean
Central America
acquisition, probably production
New York City
New York
U.S.A.
North America
preservation
Socialism endorsement