What all this boils down to is this: Unless you can hold it in your hand, you don’t own it. That goes for money, gold, silver, whatever you have “paper” on. If you have a certificate saying you own X amount of silver, it is worth exactly what the paper is worth. To get the full value of the silver you have to go to court to get a judgement. I don’t know about you but if the economy collapses I think the rest of civilization will be on shaky legs too, especially the courts. Hell, they’re already bought and paid for by the banks. The only possible exception is land. If you have a deed and you’re living on the land, you’ll get to stay there until someone comes along and runs you off. At that point you have the option of contesting their action... but you’d better have a good gun.
And don’t tell me it can’t happen here. The Germans said the same thing, as did the Ukranians, as did the Turkish Armenians, as did the Hutus, as did the... It CAN happen here.
But the threat of that happening is not imminent. Seems rather silly to me to take huge tax losses. If society breaks down, no asset class is safe..