Gold was still used as money while the Black Death ravaged Europe. It was still used as the Mongols cut a swath all the way to Eastern Europe and while the Visigoths sacked Rome.
Can you think of any tougher times than that when gold had no value?
During those times gold was the money as were other metals.
What good does a pocketfull of bullion do you when you and your family are hungry ?
Nothing unless there is someone willing to trade foodstuffs or other needed items for shiny metal.
Granted, gold can and will preserve value IF the economy will recover ... what if it doesn’t ?
What good is the metal except to make high dollar fishing sinkers or cast bullets.
I still say money is better spent on canned goods, barter items and bullets.
Yes, that's the point. Even as extreme as those conditions were, the economy wasn't reduced to barter. A form of money was still used.
Now if the paper collapses, gold will be that money. Barter just isn't efficient enough no matter how tough the times are.
If 1/3 of Europe's population dying off in a plague isn't enough to eliminate money as a medium of exchange, what possibly wild scenario could you imagine in our time that could do that?
What good is the metal except to make high dollar fishing sinkers or cast bullets.
Yet it never has been reduced to that in recorded history, but this time will be different I guess.
Somebody is always going to have a surplus above and beyond what they need for subsistence and the odds of them wanting a form of money as opposed to more subsistence goods are high. Otherwise the use of money wouldn't have arisen in even the most rudimentary forms of civilization.