I think there’s a business opportunity for someone able you make 2oz, 24K gold belt buckles painted to resemble stainless steel.
The other thing to consider is rolls of old US 90% silver coins.
I've tried to do some research on if one should have metals in a safe place. It's not easy, sorting through all the sales pitches and hype. My take-a-way is having some easily identifiable gold and/or silver could be good for barter in an emergency. But it's only a good idea if one knows how to sell it and what it's worth.
It's a jungle out there, though, with dealers trying to sell "rare coins of great potential future value, guaranteed to soar even further in value". I'm not sure I could ever know enough to get involved with rare coins.
It would be even better to make gold buckles, buttons etc out of gold with a little more copper mixed in as an alloy so it would look like brass. Just look at a SA kruegerrand and you’ll notice that it’s darker than a U.S. Eagle for example. That’s because it has more copper in it.
Pt buckles would work as well.
No need to "paint". You can buy plating kits off the Internet. That's what I did. You can plate metals to be practically any other metal you want (although you may have to use intermediate metal solutions to get there). The kits are cheap (except for gold solution), and do a great job. But take time and labor. For example, I plated a house full of brass door and lamp hardware to be copper plated for a vintage look. Belt buckles would be easy. The process uses electricity, and is reversible.