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If I have food, fuel, water and light and can procure more for myself as I need it, why would I want gold? I cannot do one useful thing in a low tech world of scarcity with gold. I would prefer a supply of ammunition, candles, toilet paper, matches, distilled spirits, stabilized gasoline,motor oil, tobacco or medicines. Any of those commodities would be worth a portion of my renewable food, fuel, water.

In January in the Northern Hemisphere, would you sell your supply of firewood or preserved food for a commodity that only needs more security and produces nothing else?

Gold might be valuable in procuring needed essentials immediately prior to a collapse. That would be a sort of market timing. It would be preferable to have procured the means to produce the needed essentials for the foreseeable future well beforehand. You could end up expending all your hoard of gold for enough essential commodities to survive only a short time.

Like many others, I have some gold coins. However, I think they are less valuable than having the means to continually provide the essentials needed to live during the hardest times. I also have extra supplies of the commodities listed above. When choosing what to store, gold is way down on my personal list.

Gold is a store of value. It is not a currency. Gold is a good idea if you think the hard times are of a short duration and it would be available as a stake for getting started again in a modern world. An alternative scenario would be where currency is devalued and asset classes are reinflated by governments, making gold worthwhile to purchase assets. Assets, however, are not necessarily the same thing as commodities. However, what is to stop those same governments from setting the price of gold, limiting the amount that can be cashed in or banning private ownership? All that has happened in the past.