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Commemorative Lighter — First Tricontinental Conference (Primera Conferencia de Solidaridad de los Pueblos de África, Asia y América Latina), Havana, 1966
Object/Artifact
A rectangular brass flip-top petrol lighter (Zippo-style, hinged windscreen lid). One broad face is stamped in black-filled capitals, the text running across both lid and body: on the lid, "PRIMERA / CONFERENCIA"; on the body, "DE SOLIDARIDAD / DE LOS PUEBLOS / DE AFRICA, / ASIA / Y / AMERICA LATINA." The opposite face carries, in black, the Tricontinental/OSPAAAL emblem: a clenched fist and forearm gripping a rifle, superimposed on a wireframe globe of meridians and parallels.
Commemorative Lighter — First Tricontinental Conference (Primera Conferencia de Solidaridad de los Pueblos de África, Asia y América Latina), Havana, 1966
Commemorative Lighter — First Tricontinental Conference (Primera Conferencia de Solidaridad de los Pueblos de África, Asia y América Latina), Havana, 1966 - Image 2
Commemorative Lighter — First Tricontinental Conference (Primera Conferencia de Solidaridad de los Pueblos de África, Asia y América Latina), Havana, 1966 - Image 3
2025.2.21
Per the holder, the lighter was a gift to conference participants, obtained by Theodore E. "Ted" Veltfort — Abraham Lincoln Brigade veteran then working in Cuba's electronics industry — and preserved by his stepdaughter, the illustrator Anna Veltfort (author of Goodbye, My Havana / Adiós mi Habana), who lived in Havana with the family during the 1960s.
The inscription names the First Conference of Solidarity of the Peoples of Africa, Asia and Latin America — the First Tricontinental Conference — held in Havana 3–15 January 1966 with more than 500 delegates from 82 nations, which founded the Organization of Solidarity with the Peoples of Africa, Asia and Latin America (OSPAAAL). Cuba designated 1966 the "Año de la Solidaridad," and the conference was a landmark of Third World anti-imperialist and anti-colonial alignment; it was at this moment that Che Guevara's "Message to the Tricontinental" ("create two, three… many Vietnams") is associated. The fist-gripping-rifle-over-globe device became the enduring emblem of OSPAAAL and its magazine Tricontinental. This lighter is a small conference souvenir bearing that founding iconography.
Anna Veltfort collection
Ted Veltfort collection
2025.2
Anna Veltfort
Gift
1966
1960s
Japan
Asia
Tricontinental conference
lManufacturer/Attribution: Unmarked on the visible surfaces; maker not identified. The lighter mechanism is a commercially produced blank decorated for the conference. Date: circa 1966 (contemporaneous with the conference it commemorates).
Inscription
side
PRIMERA CONFERENCIA DE SOLIDARIDAD DE LOS POEBLOS DE AFRICA, ASIA Y AMERICA LATINA
Spanish
FIRST SOLIDARITY CONFERENCE OF THE PEOPLES OF AFRICA, ASIA AND LATIN AMERICA
Etched
Inscription
bottom
JAPAN
English
Etched
Face 1 (text): "PRIMERA CONFERENCIA DE SOLIDARIDAD DE LOS PUEBLOS DE AFRICA, ASIA Y AMERICA LATINA." Face 2 (device): OSPAAAL/Tricontinental emblem (fist with rifle over globe), no lettering. Bottom: "JAPAN"
3.3 cm
2.9 cm
0.5 cm
Brass outer case with hinged lid; removable lighter insert (wick, flint wheel, flint, internal fuel packing).
Metal
Brass (case); steel and other metals (insert, flint wheel, hinge); cotton wick; flint; black paint/enamel fill in the engraving.
Good
Anna Veltfort
keeper
Theodore Ernest Veltfort
owner
Organization of Solidarity with the Peoples of Africa, Asia and Latin America
Havana
Cuba
Caribbean
Central America
acquisition
Japan
Asia
production
First Conference of Solidarity of the Peoples of Africa, Asia and Latin America