RIPLEY’S BELIEVE IT OR NOT! TRUE GHOST STORIES #23

Cover is bagged and photographed through plastic; colors remain reasonably rich with the dark painted background showing light overall wear. Visible defects include minor spine-edge stress and slight rounding/blunting at the upper corners, light edge wear along the top and right margins, and some faint surface abrasion/tiny nicks along the bottom edge with a small bend near the lower right. No writing, tears, or color-breaking creases are apparent at this resolution; glare from the bag may hide light bends. Spine interior, staples, back cover, and pages were not assessed from this single front-cover photo.

Ripley's Believe It or Not! True Ghost Stories #23 is a December 1970 issue of Western Publishing's Gold Key anthology line, which adapted the Ripley's newspaper-panel format of purportedly true oddities into short illustrated horror and supernatural vignettes. The title ran for decades under the Gold Key and later Whitman imprints, part of a broader wave of anthology horror comics that flourished after the relaxation of the Comics Code in the early 1970s. This issue carries interior art credited to Luis Dominguez, an artist whose moody, illustrative style was a mainstay of Gold Key's mystery and suspense titles throughout the period, though no writer credit survives in standard references for this particular issue.

As an anthology book with no recurring characters, continuing storylines, or first appearances, this issue does not carry the kind of collector demand tied to origin stories or character debuts. Its market position reflects that reality: it circulates as a mid-run reader copy within a lengthy, still-affordable series that draws interest primarily from Gold Key completists, horror-anthology collectors, and admirers of Dominguez's cover and interior work rather than from investment-driven buyers.

Collecting activity for this issue is modest and largely driven by series runs rather than single-issue demand. Raw copies in lower grades trade cheaply and are readily available, while well-preserved mid-grade copies see somewhat more interest from readers assembling a complete Ripley's Believe It or Not! run. Certified high-grade examples are scarce simply because few copies were submitted for grading, which can produce outsized prices at the top of the census, but this reflects rarity of surviving pristine copies rather than any inherent key status or rising demand for the issue itself.