The worst economic crisis since the Great Depression has investors everywhere wondering whether to buy, hold -- or bail. Though there's no telling whether the current global recession will turn into a sepia-toned, soup-lined sequel to that historic calamity, it did get us thinking: If the whole point of stocks is to buy low and sell high, then the Great Depression must have offered some pretty good buying opportunities.

But what were they? SmartMoney.com went in search of the Great Depression s best buys, with help from the Center for Research in Security Prices at the University of Chicago s Booth School of Business. The CRSP crunched numbers to find the 50 best performing stocks from 1932 to 1954 by cumulative total return. The result: A dream portfolio for the greatest investors of the Greatest Generation.

Slideshow: 15 of the Top 50 Great Depression Stocks

We started with 1932 because, while the famous market crash occurred in 1929, it didn't hit rock bottom until almost three years later. Even uglier, the Dow Jones Industrial Average didn't regain its precrash level until 1954, meaning it took more than a couple of decades to make investors whole.

Looking over the list is a reminder of days gone by -- and a time when company names were straightforward and even mundane. No Navistars or Altiras here. Fans of "The Simpsons" might recall that Mr. Burns had put money into the fictional Amalgamated Spats, but in real life he should have doubled down on Electric Boat and National Acme Co. The former, which still makes submarines to this day as a unit of General Dynamics (GD), returned a whopping 55,000% over those 22 years. National Acme (it made machine tools, not giant slingshots for perpetually frustrated cartoon coyotes) returned more than 10,000%.

We've taken the complete list of 50 top investments and selected 15 of the most telling. One thing many of them share -- and a factor that might resonate with investors today, given the Obama administration s stimulus plans -- is the impact of massive deficit spending. New Deal, World War II and Cold War outlays fueled many of these stocks. Here, then, is our look at some of the greatest Great Depression stocks.

Electric Boat: Unsinkable Submarine Maker

Cumulative Total Return 1932 to 1954 Rank in Top 50:
Where is it now? A unit of General Dynamics (GD)
Churning out hundreds of PT boats and submarines during WWII (as well as building the U.S.S. Nautilus, the world's first nuclear sub, during the Cold War) more than kept this stock afloat.

International Paper & Power: Paper, Not Plastic

Cumulative Total Return 1932 to 1954 Rank in Top 50
Where is it now? International Paper (IP)
Long before plastic packaging (or the digital age, for that matter), paper was king when it came to correspondence and containers. Indeed, four of the 50 best stocks from 1932 to 1954 were in companies that made paper, paper bags and corrugated cardboard.

Zenith Radio: Tuned In

Cumulative Total Return 1932 to 1954 Rank in Top 50
Where is it now? Part of LG Electronics
Once upon a time radios were so big they weren't personal consumer electronic devices; they were furniture. Back then American, not Asian, manufacturers dominated the market for civilian and military use.

Douglas Aircraft: Bombs Away

Cumulative Total Return 1932 to 1954 Rank in Top 50
Where is it now? Bloodline leads to Boeing (BA)
It's little wonder a military contractor that helped make the B-17 bomber (as well as iconic civilian planes such as the DC-3 and DC-9), would fare well during WWII and the Cold War. North American Aviation (P-51 fighter, B-25 bomber) also made the list.

Minneapolis Honeywell Regulator: Thermostats Were Hot

Cumulative Total Return 1932 to 1954 Rank in Top 50
Where is it now? Honeywell International (HON)
Central heating is taken for granted these days, but only thanks to pioneering advances like the company's original Butz Thermo-Electric Regulator "damper flapper," which helped keep offices and factories at just the right temperature.

B.F. Goodrich: When Rubber Met the Road

Cumulative Total Return 1932 to 1954 Rank in Top 50
Where is it now? Goodrich (GR), the aerospace firm; the tire business was sold to Michelin.
As one of the world's largest makers of rubber and tires for cars, jeeps, trucks and planes, B.F. Goodrich rolled up profits through WWII and the early Cold War.

New York, Chicago & St. Louis RR: Nickel-Plated Gold

Cumulative Total Return 1932 to 1954 Rank in Top 50
Where is it now? Bloodline leads to Norfolk Southern Corp (NSC)
Before the interstate highway system, before the St. Lawrence Seaway, before air freight, the spine of the country's transportation system was its railroads. Known as the Nickel Plate Road, the New York, Chicago & St. Louis RR was integral to the war effort.

Skelly Oil: Fueled Captain Midnight

Cumulative Total Return 1932 to 1954 Rank in Top 50
Where is it now? Bloodline leads to Chevron (CVX)
The U.S. couldn't have emerged as the world's dominant economy without oil and coal. That's why five of the top stocks from the period were energy companies. In a time when oil producers were regional operations, Skelly strove toward a national profile by sponsoring the "Captain Midnight" radio drama.

Remington Rand: Tapped for Greatness

Cumulative Total Return 1932 to 1954 Rank in Top 50
Where is it now? Bloodline leads to Unisys (UIS)
Before PCs there were Remington typewriters, so it's no small irony that the company also had its fingerprints all over Univac, one of the first commercial computers. Remington Rand also pounded out large numbers of pistols for the military.

National Acme: Machine Tools, Not TNT

Cumulative Total Return 1932 to 1954 Rank in Top 50
Where is it now? Bloodline leads to Danaher (DHR)
Despite the name, National Acme didn't make giant slingshots or rocket skis for Wile E. Coyote. Rather, it produced machine tools -- the lathes, drills and grinders needed farther up the industrial food chain to shape and bend metal. As American industrial output soared, so too did this stock.

BorgWarner: Four-Wheel Driven

Cumulative Total Return 1932 to 1954 Rank in Top 50
Where is it now? BorgWarner (BWA)
Auto-parts maker BorgWarner might be best known for its sponsorship of the Indianapolis 500, but its winning turn came from a transfer case technology that helped the Allies slog ahead in four-wheel-drive vehicles.

American-Hawaiian Steamship: Sweet Liberty

Cumulative Total Return 1932 to 1954 Rank in Top 50
Where is it now? Delisted decades ago; part of the business was sold to Carrix.
Transporting sugar from Hawaii to the mainland was a nice business, but Liberty ships helped save democracy from fascism. American-Hawaiian steamships plied the seas, carrying masses of men and materiel for the war effort.

National Lead Co.: Nuclear Power

Cumulative Total Return 1932 to 1954 Rank in Top 50
Where is it now? Bloodline leads to NL Industries (NL)
Once the nation's largest lead company, it prospered from massive use of the metal in everything from wiring to paint to munitions. It was also a major miner of titanium and contributed refined uranium and other help to the Manhattan Project, which produced the first atom bomb.

Food Machinery Corp.: Now With 50% More Assault Craft

Cumulative Total Return 1932 to 1954 Rank in Top 50
Where is it now? Bloodline leads to FMC Corp (FMC)
What do canning machines and combat in the Pacific have in common? Food Machinery Corp. While industrial-scale food production depended on it for insecticides, fungicides and spray pumps, the Marines Corps depended on it for tracked assault vehicles.

Melville Shoe Corp.: Straight-Laced Investment

Cumulative Total Return Rank in Top 50
Where is it now? Bloodline leads to CVS (CVS)
The period 1932 to 1954 was better for companies that made things than sold them to consumers. After all, between the Great Depression and World War II people either had no money or there was nothing to buy. That explains why there are so few retailers on the list of 50. But Melville, famous for Thom McAn shoe stores, shod a generation of feet in uncomfortable, affordable shoes.

For a complete list of the 50 greatest investments from the Great Depression, click here.