There are some truly laughable 'chicken-little' types in the metals market, but there are also more honest miners, geologists, and even capitalist/promoters than one might suspect. ;^)
Actually, I'm thinking some of the Y2K hucksters that were trying to sell gold coins as part of their "preparedness kits."
If Y2K had been even 1/10th as bad as advertised by Dr. "Scary Gary" North, gold coins would've been dead weight in any survival kit--the space the gold took up would be better served by another box of ammo.