If society collapses, it won’t be gold or silver that has value - it will be food, water, guns and ammo that will be the new money.
I suspect at that point, as you say, lead (with a powder charge behind it) will be more valuable than gold.
For a while. When things settle down after a period of transition, and people return to producing surplus goods, some form of wealth transfer (currency/coin) will be needed. Gold and silver have been such throughout much of human history, and alternatives (tobacco, for instance) were used when the metals/coinage was in short supply.
The only times when gold and silver were not worth much were when there were extreme shortages of necessities, and even then most black markets would have a deal somewhere, albeit the gold or silver was worth relatively little.
What’s actually going to happen is that the Federal Reserve Note - that many people continue to call the ‘Dollar’ - is going to continue hemorrhaging buying power. Shadowstats estimate it at about 6 to 8% a year.
Since Nixon closed the Gold window the whole world has been using Fiat currencies: mere pieces of paper backed by Government force and increasingly unrealistic Government promises. Their buying power is bleeding away - just like the FRN.
Buy precious metals. Also: add to your stock of food, stores, tools, ammo. Make all the usual FReeper preparations.
But do not stay in paper money and paper promises.
As in, he buddy I'll trade you an ounce of gold for that can of beans. How about two ounces then?
Unless events push society back to a literal stone age - a hunter-gatherer existence with no farming - then money will be valuable.
Why is money important? Because it allows for the "concidence of wants" without which trade is impossible.
Join me in a thought experiment.
Imagine that the dollar has finally collapsed and that we live in a Mad Max dystopian nightmare.
In the center of this brave new world you run a chicken farm (appropriately defended by traps, barbed wire and kick-ass FReepers with sniper rifles).
This month you have costs - you need to hire a guy to mend the generator and a midwife to help with your daughter's pregnancy. How are you going to pay them?
They have what you want - but do you have what they want?
Unless you have some money there is no "coincidence of wants".
The generator guy and the midwife have no use for a hundred chickens! They need to replace their working materials (bearings, WD 40, medical supplies, etc) and upkeep their cars by trading with people who live a hundred miles away.
But if you have money then you can trade with them.
Carrying on with the example of a chicken farm - it's market day. There are a hundred customers lined up at the gates of your compound who want to buy what you've got - but do they have what you want?
Fifty of them have wheelbarrows of devalued fiat currency and bad attitudes. You don't want their bundles of useless scrip.
Forty of them will offer some form of barter: alcohol, batteries, hunks of homemade cheese, their young, nubile bodies, etc.
You are faced with the time and expense of evaluating forty different barter offers, many of which you will have absolutely no use for.
And ten customers offer you money: Gold and Silver. These are your favorite customers: their real money fulfills the requirement for a coincidence of wants. You can take what they offer you, and use it to buy the services of the midwife, the engineer, etc.
In summary: trade relies on the coincidence of wants, which itself relies on money.
At the moment we can still use fiat currencies for trade, because fiat currency still (sort of) works like money. But we won't be doing that when we've passed into Zimbabwe or Wiemar republic mode.
Hope this was helpful.
People w/o gold and silver like to say that. Actually one needs a variety of resources to be secure. Gold, silver, lead, good, a source of potable water and basic medical supplies are core.
Want to stock trade items? Half-pints of vodka and brandy and tampax, will be very tradable; probably at the same time of the month.
Nonsense. 5000 years of human history says otherwise.
In a total collapse scenario there will be barter of all kinds. The currency may be food, gold or even sex.