Rare printed pictorial souvenir album titled “Album Expedicionarios del Granma,” 6.25 x 4, approximately 42 single-sided pages, no date [circa 1956]. On July 26, 1953, young lawyer-turned-revolutionary Fidel Castro, increasingly critical of the Batista regime, led a group of 135 militants in a raid on the Moncada Barracks, one of Cuba’s largest military installations. The operation was a disaster: more then sixty of the raiders were killed, and most of those who escaped—including Castro and his brother Raul—were eventually captured, tried, and imprisoned. After two years, Castro was freed under the terms of a general amnesty and fled to Mexico, where he met Ché Guevara and hatched an even bolder plan. On November 26, 1956, Castro and eighty-two Cuban exiles sailed from Mexico in the Granma, a sixty-foot yacht formerly owned by an American businessman. On December 2, the rebels landed at Los Cayuelos [now Granma Province] and engaged the Cuban Army in a bloody battle that decimated their ranks. The bloodied but unbowed Castro brothers, together with a small cadre of their compadres, escaped to the Sierra Maestra mountains. From that base of operations, they continued to gain popular support and waged the fierce guerrilla war that would ultimately topple the Batista regime—and make Castro the most powerful man in Cuba. The present item, a souvenir of the historic Granma expedition, was published as a tribute to all eighty-two participants. Each single-sided page bears the photographs of two of the rebels within pictorial frames illustrated with “revolutionary” vignettes. The book begins with the twenty-seven men who died in the raid, each of whom is identified with a one-word caption: “martir.” The blank sides of the remaining pages contain the signatures of approximately twenty of the Granma survivors, including “Ché,” a rare, early “Fidel Castro Ruz,” and “Raul Castro”; Fidel has also signed again in full on the title page. The reverse of the title page bears a 1964 presentation inscription (in Russian) in an unknown hand. In very good to fine condition, with rubbing, bends, and edge wear to covers and a touch of mild soiling to interior. The signatures are clear and distinct, and the whole remains sturdy and very presentable. The few extant items signed by both Castro and Ché—not to mention an example with a revolutionary association of such tremendous significance—take a place in the most exclusive rank of Cuba-related autograph material. Auction LOA John Reznikoff/PSA/DNA and R&R COA.
