First I would like to apologize for my bad English grammar I am still learning and I am not very well at writing. I think that you people that believe that you will trade silver/ gold for food are just deluding yourself. I am from Cuba, and I have lived what can be called a mini economic collapse. From 1970-1991 we were practically a welfare state of the soviet union they gave us oil, food, everything you can imagine they even made our coins and printed our fiat money. when the USSR collapsed the next 5 years were horrible there was practically 0 international trade due the US commercial embargo, the government started to control the amount of food, medicine you could legally buy and this created a huge black market. Any foreign money (including the US dollar) was prohibited, if the police catch you with a dollar bill in your pocket you went to prison for 10 years. The Cuban peso (our currency) went into a hyperinflation situation and most people will not use it to trade especially in the black market were you could still find food, gas etc. We Cubans have been always being big on gold chains and jewelry if you come to La pequena habana in Miami you will see that for every 10 shops 3 are jewelry stores. I was a boy back them in the country side and I remember the people from La Havana and others cities to come to our small farming town to trade stuff for food, we will accepted shoes, cloths, gas, tools, medicine but no on ever trade anything for gold chains or rings. There was no use for them. What would you do with a gold ring? You cant eat it you cant use it to fix something or to heal a wound.
If a situation like this happens here in the US your best investment are guns and ammunition rounds, most people will trade food for bullets medicine or something useful but silver or gold coins don't have any use in this situation. I really doubt we will get to a state like that in this country. Silver will always go up and down, what I personally do is I buy low and sell high then when the price goes down again buy more and wait it to go up to sell that way I increase my silver stack slowly and at no real cost and by the time I retire will have a big stack for my golden years. I don't see silver going up the $50 mark in the next few years and if it reach 46-47 margin I will sell like I did last time and stack up again in the 26-30 range. That is the best scenario I can see for PM. Of course silver will have more value in 45 years than now but the same thing will happen with oil, food, toothpaste and soap. The good thing about silver is that you can make a decent profit and If you are into the numismatic trade make buck or two selecting the right coins until they gain value (example the Canadian wildlife series wolf silver coin was a very sound numismatic investment I hope the same happens with the cougar and the moose ).
I don't want to offend anyone with this post but in my experience there is no use for gold or silver in a SHTF scenario and the fact is that most people don't even know what a gold/ silver coin is and what is the value of it. Ask any random people on the street if they know how much is an once of gold or silver worth it... they would not have any clue. Do you think that when SHTF they are going to magically get aware of the value of gold and silver?. Who will enforce that 1 oz of silver is equivalent to a a loaf of bread?. If you really believe in the SHTF scenario I would recommend you to buy a farm and know how to grow food that will be your gold and silver not coins or jewelry. Sorry for the long post