And it is an exceptionally foolish means of diminishing your savings via inflation.
My father taught me the foolishness of hoarding gold or any other coinage or currency over half century ago.
His mother took a teaching job in Prosser, WA in the early 1890's. Her salary was $20 per month. At the end of the first month she was offered her pay in either paper or gold. She took the Double Eagle because nobody in our rather poor family had ever before owned gold. She probably exchanged if for currency the next day, but for that fleeting moment, she owned gold.
In the mid-1960's my father, a coin collector, bought a $20 gold coin dated just prior to the time my grandmother taught school. He explained to me that the coin could possibly (but unlikely) be the the same one that his mother owned.
At the time, gold was held to $35 per ounce by our government. My sister was teaching school in Montana for $350. That was ten times the then value of an ounce of gold.
Dad then explained the damage of inflation. An ounce of gold was once equivalent to a month of teacher pay. That same gold over 70 years later was worth only one tenth of a teacher's monthly salary. And, during all of that time it resided in someone's pocket or dresser drawer, or buried in the back yard and never earned a dime of interest.
Today, a teachers salary is probably worth three or four times the value of an ounce of gold.
So yes, the true value of gold is not dropping as fast as in times past, but it is still a poor investment. And try to buy a gallon of gas, loaf of bread or jug of milk with gold.
Survivalists, hoarders, or the otherwise sane people, would do far better in property or the stock market than accumulating coinage.
I’ve purchased firearms, air tank, entry fees and a large chunk of land for gold and/or silver.
Also, it’s not a logical conclusion that inflation eats away at the value of gold when the majority of the time period in the example it was either illegal to own or manipulated purposely down in price.