If it really hit the fan, 5.56, 9mm, shotgun shells and whiskey, just to name a few, would probably be worth more than any precious metal.
People with degrees in gender studies will not be as valuable to society.
A common view. And in special cases, like being trapped in a beseiged city, its true.
But in a SHTF situation, the true value of Gold and Silver will shine forth.
Precious metals (Gold, Silver) are money. They are the only entities that have all of the attributes of money (fungibility, portability, store of value and so forth)
Something that has the attributes of money is valuable simply because it has those attributes. Would-be barterers can use money to overcome the otherwise insuperable problem of discovering a Coincidence of wants.
Trade requires money. Let's examine this vital function of money with respect to the coincidence of wants:
My Chicken farm example:
Imagine that the world has teetered and tipped. Everyone drives a spiky car and carries a gun. Mutant molerats prowl the wilderness, etc etc.
You run an (appropriately defended) chicken farm, and you need to buy a great many things to keep your farm and family going.
In a given month you need - for instance - to buy chicken feed, to hire someone to repair your generator, to buy a nailgun to allow you to mend chicken barn #9, to hire a midwife to help give birth to your widowed daughter’s baby, to buy milk and bacon, to buy another 1000 rounds for the minigun - and so on.
Some of these resources will be buyable directly with chickens or eggs.
But some of them will not - there's no coincidence of wants if the midwife or the nailgun owner don't want chicken meat or eggs. For instance, if they can't replace their expendables with meat or eggs.
The midwife can't drive back across the Cursed Earth to Reno to buy more antibiotics or ivermectin, if all she has is a load of eggs. She's got dozens of microtransactions to make on the way, and three chickens isn't going to get it done.
However: ALL - or at least most - of these requirements for your chicken farm will be buyable with money - with Gold or Silver. Because offering money in a transaction vastly improves the chance of a coincidence of wants.
The midwife or the nail gun owner don't know anyone who wants eggs that have been roasting in the back of their spikey car for a week, but they do know people who will take Gold and Silver.
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My Chicken farm example - continued:
Imagine that you’ve had a successful month at the farm, and you now have loads of chicken meat and/or eggs to sell.
100 people line up to buy what you’ve got.
* 50 of them have horribly devalued fiat money, food-stamps and a bad attitude
* 40 of them have plans for barter - some of which are better than others.
One is willing to work on your farm for food: another is willing to sell you their nubile, but tragically rad-scarred body, another has a stack of AA duracell batteries, another has some miniature bottles of scotch - and so on, with dozens of variations.
You have to gauge each transaction on its own merits - an exhausting process - and half of the barter offers are simply going to be unworkable.
* 10 of your prospective customers have Gold and/or Silver.
Which customers will you prefer selling your produce to? They all want what you've got - but do you want what they've got? Again: real money vastly increases the chance of a coincidence of wants.
This is because only Gold and Silver fulfill all of the prerequisites of money. This gives them inherent value - useful (for instance) in a survival situation.
Of course Fiat currency can also be used to run a chicken farm. However in time all Fiat currencies - without exception - revert to their true value. Which is moving towards zero now, and which will definitely be zero when everyone has a spikey car and a Remington 870 named 'The Judge" strapped to their thigh.
When our current Fiat currency is no longer trusted then only precious metals will act as money. And you will need money, because you will need to buy and sell.
Hope this was helpful.