[astrodust]

Those aren't as valuable in a crisis as you might think. Pure gold and junk gold are largely interchangeable. If you want to be ready for some societal meltdown, load up on junk gold. A small gold ring is easier to barter with than a gold brick.

[ericd]

You can buy much smaller denominations too. There's something called the combibar which is a bar with a bunch of scored 1 gram pieces that you can snap off, like a chocolate bar.

That said, I agree that gold is probably not that useful in a collapse.

[umanwizard]

I bet drugs, canned food, and weapons/ammo are an even better thing to stock up on if you want to be ready for a TRUE meltdown, where civilization descends into total anarchy/lawlessness.

But there is a pretty wide spectrum between that and what we have now. Gold is a hedge against something like what happened to Yugoslavia, even if it's not a good hedge against the apocalypse.

[astrodust]

The closest thing to the "apocalypse" you're likely to see is what happened in Argentina and what's happening in Venezuela.

Having a "prepper bunker" full of expensive supplies is not an asset, it just makes you a target. Having a small cache of things you can easily hide, secure, and trade is significantly better. If you have to bail in your city because things get too ugly you don't need a trailer truck to move.

Any normal person who needs more than a bug-out bag and a passport to survive is doing it wrong.