[Oberon]

Originally Posted by Skybird

We have been there, and also had tobacco, salt, and many more obscure things (even spam). For some reasons humans left that behind and favoured certain metals. Maybe because it proved to be more practical in everyday life? Or do you want to make a getaway escape run from disaster - with a car full of fragile bottles? That you cannot divide to pay something that is of lesser value?

Sure, if you're in a car running from disaster then you're not exactly going to take bottles with you, but if you're not running and you're suffering from nicotine withdrawal, who knows just what you'd give for a packet of cigarettes?

Somebody said stuff is worth what people are willing to pay for it. Not many are willing to pay much for wine and alcohol, or porcelain (or paintings, statues and the like).

Um...if that is the case then how did this thread come about?

But since very long time, gold and silver is agreed by overwhelming majorities of mankind to be precious, practical and pragmatic. It seems empirical experience have convinced them.

You can't eat gold, or silver. If TSRHTF and you ran into someone holding you up at gunpoint, and you had a gold coin, a $100 bottle of whiskey and a carton of cigarettes...sure, in the early days when there's hope of the cavalry coming to the rescue and the gold coin being worth something, they might take that from you, but later...it'd be the cigarettes or whiskey...or, much more likely, any food or water you had with you.

Some also invets in precious watches. But not only does that - like wine - need very good insider knowledge and cpometence to separa5te the junk from the watches that could preserve vlaue for saome time, but the worth of the watch is gone when you break it. Can't happen with gold and silver: the value is independent from the form you give to it: necklaces, rings, coins, bars, nuggets: unimportant. The material value attributed to it remains to be the same.

Gold and Silver are only worth what society deems them to be worth, likewise with any ore, in a true SHTF scenario, metals like iron and copper would probably be worth more as they would be useful for melting down and making weaponry.

When that Chinaman breaks that cup, its value is gone. Eventually the insurrance helps out then. Not with gold, of course. With paper money...

Gold is just a metal, like paper is just paper. If anything Gold is pretty useless, it's too soft to be made into anything practical. To be honest, this paper money that you're so dead set against, is merely a progression of the financial system from gold, with the key difference in that it is an infinite resource whereas gold is finite. I can understand why that would make you place your faith more on Gold and silver than paper or electronic money, I understand that, but what I don't understand is how you think that if society was broken that Gold would still be worth something in comparison to consumable life items. Admittedly something like whiskey is a luxury consumable item, likewise cigarettes, but in an agrarian society it would be something that would set you apart from the basic needs, a luxury indeed, something that you can share or keep for yourself, to treat yourself. I can see how Gold would factor in a medieval society, after all, it did in medieval times, but only to a set section of society, traders and the like, to the average person trading was in foodstuffs and agriculture.

Ultimately, if the S did HTF hard enough, then Gold would be as useful as a paper note, because as I said earlier, you can't eat Gold.

EDIT: Furthermore, in support of the previous advice in favour of alcohol, in an emergency it can be used as a cleansing fluid, as a method of dulling pain, it can be burnt, and in the absence of water cleansing equipment it is a lot safer to drink than water. Can the same be said of Gold?