I generally don’t think of gold as an investment. It is more of a retainer of wealth. You start out with a pound of gold and years later it is still a pound. You can pretty much buy whatever you could buy with it before. Nothing beats that cool golden ring of a Kugarand however. Sounds as beautiful as it looks.
Agreed, a means of barter. I’ve also read about people keeping vice products like liquor, tobacco etc. for trade.
Gold is simply a hedge against inflation (retainer of wealth as you point out). I have it as 20% of my portfolio, with most of the rest in equities. This leaves me with enough to get by with in case the stock market crashes (in which case being poor will be among the least of our problems). Nobody is going to get rich speculating in gold.