Not everybody's strategy is the same as yours. Not everybody has the same circumstances, there are numerous useful reasons to purchase/own precious metals... That being said, I think I know where you're going with this and I agree. For general disaster/collapse/barter type of preparedness precious metals are almost useless. Look at lessons learned and stories of previous real-world SHTF and precious metals didn't have the value people thought they would. Why? You can't eat them, you can't protect yourself with them, you can't burn them to keep warm etc, so nobody wants them unless it's at a VERY high conversion (IE, 1 loaf of bread for 2 oz of gold). I read one story from the Balkans of a jeweler trading jars full of precious metals (gold & silver) for a single meal for his family... For anybody that is looking into PMs for preps, you need to think long and hard about it first. Study past experiences and move forward cautiously. If your other bases are not well-covered you may be compromising your family by putting money into PMs when it should be going into real preps.
