@TheGooner 167850 wrote:
If currency collapses (and civilised society) … then I’m not sure what good old bits of previously precious metal are – there is no-one around to work them.
When the currency collapsed in Germany, that’s all anyone would accept as money – recognizeable coins made of gold or silver. People figured they had to have more value than paper money. Which was and is true. The trouble with gold boullions is that they are too big and valuable, and collector’s coins were thought to recover all their value later (also true). So the best thing to have was old silver and gold coins that had no collectors value – too beat up and what have you. There are still plenty of those available in the US, dimes, quarters and dollars, sold by the pound, cheap.
Other than that you had to have goods like all the above to trade.
Specifically valuable were flour, salt, sugar and lard. People revert to basics – a pound of flour or rice keeps you alive a lot longer than the equivalent in ready meals or canned stuff.
Upper end items were liquor and cigarettes.
This also held true in post war times, when everything was shattered and there was no money at all, just pitifully insufficient rations.
I grew up hearing about all the trades that were made back then, those were desperate times. Also, starving people don’t think twice about stealing. If you think that times like that aree coming back, and you want to keep stashes of stuff, you better keep them real secure.
PS. From the choices above, I picked antibiotics.