Arcticdude
Top Poster
That's not entirely true. Early Man used copper and gold nuggets, and even platinum nuggets for tools, when they could find them or trade for them. They were much easier to hammer in to a tool than stone, plus they generally would bend rather than break when they hit something hard, like bone. This made gold very valuable to ancient Man.Here is the definitive answer. If there is a market for precious metal, then it has value. If there is NO market, precious metal has base metal value. Cave man did not give a rat's azz about gold or silver. Sharp fire hardened stick was top of the trading list. If there is a demand there is value. Once the end of the world folks repopulate and start to banding together, then precious metal will once again move to the top of the value chain. The world around us maybe changing and morphing into something different but this is not an end of the world event. Governments still exist and taxes still get collected. With that statement in mind, precious metals (in hand) is a good thing. If we devolve into a WROL world, then lead is going to be much more valuable and precious metal will be be at the bottom of the list.
A mining partner of mine years ago found a gold spear point in his wash plant. The end was bent, but even after untold years under many tons of gravel, he was able to strighten it. So the facts are, precious metals have always been highly valued since the beginning of time. That isn't going to change when or if we have a total collaspe of our modern society.