Very interesting discussion. I am thinking a lot these days about prepping for end times/ zombie apocalypse...
Until the SHTF gold and silver will work as hedges against inflation. In other words, as the world economy deteriorates and a dollar buy less rice, gold and silver will continue to buy the same amount of rice. For a while. I admit that's a gross oversimplification, but that's the beasic idea of a hedge.
Once we get to Beyond Thunderdome levels of societal deterioration, gold and silver will have little to no value. In order of imporatnace, resource primacy will look something like this:
1. Defensible land with water and a renewable food system
2. Guns and Ammo
3. Seeds (pesticides might not be a bad thing to have for an emergency. with no outside resources, crop failure can mean death)
4. Antibiotics (other medicines as well, but ABs are the most important- you'll see)
5. Fuel and renewable energy systems
6. Strong, smart people with skills, community wisdom and the the will to kill
7. Libraries of useful information- military training manuals, textbooks, technical manuals, etc.
Back to the subject of precious metals-
If you are walking into pawn shops to buy your coinage- make sure you're not buying semi-numismatic coins. They are not worth what folks claim, they are not "un-confiscatable"...
If I were massing silver and gold for disaster purposes, I'd be mindful of the low-portability aspect of metals (bullets are just as heavy, YesProp)... I'd probably keep about a year of coinage in low value silver coins, a year of higher value silver bullion and the rest of it in Gold. Hard to buy a loaf of bread with a gold ingot worth $5K!!!
Ive been doing the same much of the same. I've got the means to do so now so have been taking measures to make myself as prepared as possible...guns, ammo, food rations for 6 months, next purchases will be a wood stove and a hand pump of some type for my well, along with building up my library of survival texts, and lastly acquring 1k-2k in both gold and silver in small denominations.
I'm not paranoid about TEOTWAWKI, I just like knowing that if some catastrophe hit that rendered the gov't non-functional for a period of time I am able to take care of myself.