PowerSwitch

[cubes]

I was reading about people stocking up on gold and silver coins for end of the economy as we know it (on housepricecrash).

Thinking about it a little, yes, they would be useful to some degree, but surely most people wouldn't touch them with a bargepole in those situations would they? Even if they did, I suspect you would do better bartering with stuff that is actually useful and not just shiny things in most situations.

Is my thinking wrong here?

[MisterE]

I dont think it will ever come to that, but if we do ever need to barter then defo I think 'usefullness' will be the value of something defo.
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"I'd put my money on the sun and solar energy. What a source of power! I hope we don't have to wait until oil and coal run out before we tackle that." — Thomas Edison, 1931

http://www.infowars.com http://www.spy.org.uk/spyblog/

[RenewableCandy]

If it ever came to metal I'd put more faith in silver than in gold: can't make clean water out of gold!
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Soyez réaliste. Demandez l’impossible.
Space and Spaceability
The Year-Long Lunch Break

[cubes]

Maybe the best metal to put your money in is an iron bar in these situations It'll even be shiny if you polish it!

[Mark]

[adam2]

Gold has been a traditional store of value since ancient times, and in the very long term has roughly held its value.
It is non perishable, compact, and readily concealed.

However gold is of almost no use in itself, and silver has only limited uses. A stash of food, fuel, blankets, footwear, tools etc would be more likely to save your life than a supply of gold or silver.
If however you already have a good stock of supplies then gold or silver may be worth considering.

Whilst times are normal, property, shares, and interest bearing savings accounts all do better than gold in the long term. However as recent events have shown, banks can fail and shares and property can decline markedly in the short term.

The main advantage of gold is that governments cant print more of it !
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"Installers and owners of emergency diesels must assume that they will have to run for a week or more"

[featherstick]

In Argentina in 2001, gold was being bought up on street corners, sold by people desperate for cash. However, most of it was cheap jewellery. People who sold high value coin only realised cheap jewellery prices, and absent proper dealers who would give them the value of the coin they were selling, lost a lot of money. So if you want to hoard gold, get it from the Argos catalogue, not Hatton Garden.
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"Tea's a good drink - keeps you going"

[emordnilap]

featherstick - are you for real? If so, welcome.
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The human appears to have no idea what its ideal diet should be; has self-inflicted diet-related diseases; causes extensive environmental destruction through basic food production & creates pathogenic infestations that widely infect its food supply.

[featherstick]

I'm real enough in my own subjective view of things - are you?

Turns out the reference for my assertion above is already on PS

http://www.powerswitch.org.uk/portal/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=2079&Itemid=2
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"Tea's a good drink - keeps you going"

[featherstick]

My own bartering plans include tealights, and ibuprofen. And skills.
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"Tea's a good drink - keeps you going"

[emordnilap]

[emordnilap]

from that link:

[Catweazle]

[adam2]

A supply of batteries is well worth stocking for bartering, or for your own use.
In the 1970s powercuts, batteries were in very short supply and sold for many times the normal price.
This applied to both disposable torch batteries, and vehicle or similar batteries.

It might be worth making and stockpiling some very basic battery operated lights for barter or trade. I have two sorts.

1) A plastic battery holder for two D cells with a 2.4 volt 0.7 amp torch bulb soldered in place. These cost about £1.50 with batteries and are basicly a give-away item.
They give more light, for longer, at lower cost, than a glowstick, and the batteries have a longer shelf life than glowsticks.

2) A plastic box containing a battery holder for three D cells, with an ultra bright LED controlled by a 3 or 4 postion switch so as to give a choice of light level.
Cost about £5 to make and gives a run time of thousands of hours. At an LED current of 10ma, the run time would be about 2,000 hours, or about a year of dusk till midnight use.
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"Installers and owners of emergency diesels must assume that they will have to run for a week or more"

[Haggis]