Gold. Is it any use?

[Timelord]

Gold or similar high value items like diamonds, jewellery etc are only any use for expediating your ass over a national border to a safer place or to buy a boat or plane passage away from danger. That is about all it was any good for historically if you are in the middle of a SHTF situation. Historically then only barter of items of use have been used during a SHTF crisis. As pointed out by Scythe, human nature in regard to shiny precious metals has not changed over the millennia BUT this does not mean it has stayed at a constant worth.

The myth of gold & silver is a dangerous misdirection. It is only able to be used when there is a surplus of material items available. It is then used as a medium of exchange in the form of a substitute material value. It is in a way similar to a bank note or promissory note as they are in reality - "I Owe the Bearer the sum of this note", The "I owe" relates to state who backs and regulates the medium on a great scale.
For precious metals then it is on an individual one to one basis, but the value of wealth or goods or material objects - whatever you wish to call it, is likewise temporarily stored in the substitute medium of the precious metal. Again I state to you, that throughout human history, any precious metal medium of exchange only has a worth when
A) there is a surplus of wealth in whatever material form that takes, to be able to barter with and
B) the person you are bartering with regards the substitute precious metal as having a value you are prepared to accept in exchange.

Historically and all throughout our history, ancient and to this very day, human nature has defined the worth of a refugee passage as being worth a very great amount of valuable metals and jewels. This could take the form of all your family silver plates in exchange for one sack of potatoes to feed your starving family or all your jewellery you and your wife are wearing in exchange for that boat passage out of a war torn or major disaster area. This is the reality of human nature and gold and silver in a SHTF event. The talk of markets and exchange rates is all about now, pre SHTF and will not matter one iota when SHTF for real.

Secondly, at any other time you are in possession of precious metals or jewellery etc, it could attract unwanted attention to yourself in a very bad way. In Germany post WW2, the only people accepting gold and silver in exchange for goods like food mainly, were the farmers living in the rural areas around the cities. They had a surplus of food and could afford to accumulate large amounts of other peoples family wealth of precious metals in exchange for only minor amounts of food. they became pretty wealthy from this and there was much bad feeling in later years. The farmers could afford to sit on the metals until the economy eventually picked up and the metals resumed there original PSHTF prices. This is due to the limited scope of the disaster and their own surplus of materials/food production.
If we take away the limited scope of disaster and make it a "Biggie" and if there was no surplus of food/goods due to the type disaster, then the precious metals would have been of no value whatsoever to those people.

This discussion now brings up two further points.
1) Gold and silver and other precious materials do have a very useful trading value when an economy or bartering individuals have achieved a surplus. Then it can be used as a substitute value of material wealth as described before. This is the norm through history and is where coins also originated from in the form of discs of a precious metal, stamped and regulated by an overseeing authority.
VERY IMPORTANTLY :- 2) Having a prep based ideology and putting your hard earned labour or surplus wealth into precious meals could in fact be seriously detrimental to the realisation of your material preps. The reason for this is that as discussed earlier, if the SHTF or even the PSHTF scenario results in massive devaluation of the precious metals in relation to real physical goods, then what you are in effect doing is putting a chunk of your "now assets" into a medium which may massively devalue in a time when you wish to reconvert it back into useful real goods. "That will be £20,000 pounds" worth of gold for this nice working Remingtom 870 Wingmaster 12gauge shotgun...... Oh.. and that lovely ring there your wife is wearing for a box of shells please ..... Take it or leave it mister"

"Empty all your jewellery and rings, cash into the bag and then you can get on board.. That's you and your wife, not the old folk!"

Think carefully about the reality of strife torn scenarios, not what the best return you can get is based on current market models and some online expert.

Disregard any of the above as you feel fit. lol all the way to the bank.... lol .. TL.