People still trade now all the time. And the value of gold won’t be just it’s intrinsic value, its value will be it’s use in trading. People will very rapidly associate a useful value to gold so they can trade freely. It is much easier to trade for some universally accepted fungible item than to try to work out individual direct deals trading guns for apples, and hammers for horses.
Assuming a hunting rifle is very valuable then what would you offer someone for theirs? The rifle maintains it’s value and keeps on providing a return on the investment. What would you have that is not a consumable to trade it for? Maybe something like a plow would be an equivalent, but then the gun owner would have to want a plow. If he trades for gold he can trade the gold for something he does want.
Gold and silver however, I possess simply because I’m enamored with shiny-pure things. Copper, oak, Lead, clay, Tin, heritage tomato seeds, Zinc, Bill Bryson…
I figured it out as a kid. Somehow I got a bottle of Potassium Nitrate when I simply asked my Mom for some for my chemistry set. No idea how she came up with it, but she did.
People who know and care about such things know how to read a touchstone, which while not convenient for every single transaction allows people to quickly gauge at least a rough idea of the gold/silver/copper content of a sample. That said, I agree that there’s a severe markdown on “junk” metal- random jewelry, etc.- and most serious traders will only touch coins and ingots of known providence.
When I was a kid, I read children’s biographies of famous Americans and I remember the one about Thomas Edison and how as a boy, he had quite an elaborate chemistry lab going. I think this was in the basement of his family’s house and then later, on the train on which he was working as a telegraph operator. (I vaguely remember an explosion on the train caused by one of his experiments.) Even when I was a kid, this seemed crazy dangerous to me.
I’m not saying people won’t trade or have forgotten how to trade, only that as far as assessing the relative worth of something, the worth of gold is pretty abstract and not at all intuitive and so cannot be strictly measured in how much one needs one than the other (how many gold bricks do I need to keep warm through the winter?). Even if people have some recollection that gold has value (or is supposed by others to have value) in trade, their inexperience in exchanging goods and services for gold, coupled with the lack of practical use for it, will tend to obscure its value.
Right now, of course an ounce of gold is worth a hunting rifle. In fact, it’s worth several hunting rifles (and, yes, I’ve cheated: I’ve looked it up online as if this isn’t the end of the world after all). But when there is no other currency to compare the value of gold and the value of a rifle to, even if it weren’t the post-apocalypse and you just wandered up to someone on the street today with a proposition of “I’ll trade an ounce of gold for your hunting rifle,” would they look at that tiny nugget in your hand and recognize that they were being offered a tremendous bargain?
Or would they shrug, and say, “Got any cash?” (again, this is if the transaction were to take place today, pre-apocalypse, but with some contrived scenario in which there is no internet)
I suggest they’d do the latter in most case. Because a man knows the value of a hunting rifle in cash, bought and paid for with the same, and he knows whether or not he really needs it to put food on the table that night or any other night, but if he’s anything like me he has no concept of the value of a gold nugget of a given size.
As an aside (not a hijack), what WOULD be a good thing to have for trading when it all goes to Hell? Posters have suggested, ammunition, antibiotics, liquor, food, etc. I would think that, ideally, you would want something that is relatively cheap to purchase now, that would be more difficult to obtain after the Apocalypse, that would be useful and valued, that would be either easy to transport (to permit you to carry/conceal it) or very hard (to deter theft), and that would last for a long time without maintenance or replacement.
Being a farmer is always good. Many years ago, being a blacksmith was a pretty good thing. You had a skill set that was in high demand by everyone and your equipment was not easy to pick up and carry away. Maybe being a miller and having a mill to process grains would be desirable? I don’t know.
Some sort of water filtration system(s) would probably be in very high demand shortly after people are forced to start drinking from streams, lakes, and…ponds.
How about things like whole black peppercorns, dried bay leaves, nutmeg and other dry, whole spices? They keep well, and if there is an interruption to global trade, you’re probably not likely to get more pepper from India. Also, books on emergency and field medicine, in paper form. Parts needed to build or maintain shortwave radios. Emergency solar generating systems.
There’s also the question of whether you’re thinking about the immediate aftermath of a world-ending disaster, or survival after a year, five years, ten years. I’d say flexibility and the ability to adapt would be helpful, as would having mechanical skills.
I know how to make potassium nitrate. Never had to, I had access to some. The gunpowder formula is simple, but the process of making something more than just fireworks quality is tough. Making potassium nitrate in quantity would be a tedious process also.
