The top Golden Age book this month is Mystery Tales #15. Created by Russ Heath, and Dick Ayers with a host of other artists and edited by none other than Stan Lee. This book and in fact the series is moving on the top ten Golden Age ranks like speculators going after a hot issue. Mystery Tales #15 was created in 1953 a time of great anxiety after all, the Cold War was raging. The early 1950's had a greater degree of freedom with horror comics as it was pre-comic code. Therefore, you could show things like vampires grabbing some unsuspecting hero and pulling him into a coffin, or a little monster on the front cover, and even a nutcase jumping out of an airplane. The gloves were off with violence portrayed in comics during the early 1950's. The horror genre was popular in comics along with crime, cowboys, and westerns. You should look at some of the original western comics from this era they are still very expensive. Can a 1950's vampire prove profitable in the 21st Century?
The Mystery Tales #15 was created at the end of the Korean War, the Russians had created their first hydrogen bomb, Dwight D Eisenhower was president and the U.S. created the first Polio Vaccine. Later on, in the series of Mystery Tales, they have issue number 6 which has a nuclear bomb storyline. These Cold War comics are apparently very hot now. Mystery Tales #15 has sold recently on ComicConnect for $1050 on 6/14/18 for a grade (9.0). Further down the trough Mystery Tales #15 in the lower grade (4.0) sold for $233 at the end of August in 2018. But the returns on this living dead "Creature Feature" is nothing short of unnerving. Currently, grade (9.0) has returned positive +292.5% ROI on Mystery Tales #15! That is one whopper of a horror story for the person that sold it back in 2006 for almost nothing. High grade giving you altitude sickness? I understand completely but you can still get an unearthly return with grade (1.8) for $120 which returned a positive +130.8% ROI.
The Golden Age is being assaulted by these horror comics in the top ten popular Golden Age ranks. For instance, Mystery Tales #14 has recently taken 6th place in most popular Golden Age comic. The value is huge with an FMV of $27,000 in (9.8) and a very fine (8.0) going for FMV of $9250. These undead comics have a new life and are pushing Superman and Batman back down the rankings. Mystery Tales #14 with a grade very fine (8.0) has returned a stunning positive +486.1% return on investment for this pre-code comic book. Mystery Tales #14 was also edited by Stan Lee and the team of Bill Everett, Joe Maneely, Al Luster, Paul Reinman, Myron Fass and George Tuska (pencils) an army of artists. With these returns, you can expect the horror genre to creep back into vogue.
Mystery Tales has some hilarious covers like "Man in the Morgue!" this cover was created for Mystery Tales #9 and quoting the monster on the cover, "you-made-a-bad-mistake!" The only mistake would be not investing in one of these books. Mystery Tales is a big-time horror comic that obviously still has a following. I have known that pre-code horror was popular, I just didn't think the returns were quite this high! The last actual sale for the grade (8.0) was $6059 on CommicConnect in June 2018. This book has slowed down unlike the previous two issues and some grades have dropped in value. Stick with the low hanging fruit in grade (2.0) which returned a positively healthy +61.8% as recently as August 2018.
