I bought the shirt from the Patriot Shop that reads, on the back, 'Invest in precious metals. Buy Lead."
If one has that precious metal, it's going to be real hard for some criminal to take away anything precious.
I quite agree. All other issues aside, the problem with relying on precious metal in a total economic crash is that it is so expensive to acquire now, and so difficult to divide down for small transactions like buying food or fuel, that you couldn't actually use it. Nobody in their right mind would take a lump of metal you
claimed was gold (Of whatever purity), and something like Krugerrand is 'way too big in value to use. Gold coins are just too damned expensive to use as a basis for a medium of exchange in that situation, it would go straight from paper to barter if that ever happened.
Given the current price of nonferrous metals, our present coinage is not all that far off its metal value and might be of use in such times; old silver coins are worth much more than their face value, though, and therefore also would have problems as a trading vehicle. I just stay away from the whole 'Precious metals as a store of wealth' thing. People can certainly make lots money speculating on it (Or lose lots of money), which is not to my own taste, but if the worse came to pass the person holding the precious metal when the music stopped would probably be screwed at least as badly as everyone else. "Oh, you'd like to buy a dressed fryer rabbit? That'll be one gold coin, please."