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Well, gold torcs look good on goats, too. Very, very special, sacrificial goats.
Metal-detector guy could get really lucky and get a free goat with his cache of bronze-age coins, torcs and cauldrons instead of getting unlucky with a merchant's "just in case the Roundheads get here" tiny stash.
A lot of those stashes I'm talking about turn up because that's what happened, mate. Either Vikings came, the plague got 'em, they were forced off the land before they could dig stuff up... or Dad died of a heart-attack before he could tell anybody where he buried it.
Large, ceremonial caches are different kettles of fish.
edited 21st Nov '12 12:32:28 AM by Euodiachloris
So, in other words not because of a failure to keep food in the pot. :P
Really, though, you could apply that to anything. Why get a job? You might die before you get to spend your money.
We're getting off topic, though. In terms of precious metals, that could work out to your advantage even in a situation less dramatic than the end of civilization. However, in a true emergency situation, I imagine the same things you prepare for yourself would be good for barter. Ammo makes sense, and someone earlier mentioned comfort items, although I'm not sure is something like candy is "value dense" enough to work. What about things like toothpaste or soap?
Food in the pot is also one of the factors, mate. I didn't include it in the list, as I'd already covered it.
You won't go digging up the gold, if you've got nobody who wants to trade for it, as everybody is too damned busy starving to be interested. If the starving goes on long enough... nobody will be left to wonder where you might have buried anything.
It was also covered under "Vikings came". Taking crops, animals, women, children and wagons happened... leaving very little if it was close to winter for anybody who had managed to hide.
No prizes for guessing what happened in winter.
And, hey... if not the Vikings... you could say the same of tax gatherers and the foragers of war bands from time to time (hence "Roundheads", but I could have gone for "Cavaliers", too).
edited 21st Nov '12 12:59:37 AM by Euodiachloris
^^ Or if you're sufficiently dickish, use bullets to "pay" for other peoples' stuff, in a kind of Ballistic Discount.
@107 - That kind of defeats your point, if you were trying to say it was pointless to hide it. If they had spent it on food or livestock, the Vikings would have taken it. At least by burying it there was a chance that they could recover it after the winter and use it to rebuild.
So, to any gun enthusiasts, any ideas what kind of ammo would be most in demand in post-apocolyptia?
"The kind that kills people! How the hell do I know what kind it is?"
With apologies to Kelly's Heroes for the paraphrase.
edited 21st Nov '12 1:37:22 PM by Fighteer
"It's Occam's Shuriken! If the answer is elusive, never rule out ninjas!"Yeah, if you don't know how to shoot, or like me can't aim for shit, it's probably not important to stock up on guns and ammo except as trade goods (and even then Ballistic Discount.) Presuming you can shoot or take the time to learn how, you'll want common guns that are easy to maintain and find spare parts for and the ammo to match. Guns suitable for hunting small game or light intruder defense are best for most reasonable disaster scenarios.
You should avoid situations where you have to fend off large, well-armed bands of looters solo. So rapid-fire automatic weapons and the like are best left to the "crazy hermit" stereotype.
Think small caliber handguns, light hunting rifles, and shotguns. The last have the advantage of being relatively easy to reuse shells; you can pick up the necessary equipment at estate sales and auctions in any rural North American area, if you don't want to splurge on new. (Gun shows are also a good place, but might be spendier.)
If you think you want a steady business, shotgun shells. They're refillable, so you can offer a small discount to people who bring in their recyclables. Plus, you can keep the component parts unassembled until you are ready to fill an order, so that the looters won't be able to just waltz in and take ready ammo.
Salt would make a good worth stockpiling. Salt is an essential component for humanity's continued existence, and was itself used as currency by a few civilizations. I'm again reminded of Jericho, wherein the town's main source of power after being cut off from the world is their salt mine.
Bullets make a good barter resource for the same reason people would want them to begin with: they are easily consumed and necessary in an after-the-end scenario. I might part with a magazine or two as trade if I already had thousands of rounds, but there's no way I'm looking to my ammunition stocks as a trade resource when I need it for security and to gather meat.
Gold and silver, and gems, and salt, and perhaps spices as well would quickly see their worth increase in an apocalyptic scenario. After all, it's not as though everyone's going to just vanish. You'll still have people in communities, perhaps sitting on more goods than they themselves could use, and a solid currency like gold or silver is a handy way to negotiate when the barter system is no longer viable.
Consider this: I don't need a good knife if I already have my own. I don't need another pair of socks if I already have plenty. I don't need more meat if I already have more than I could eat in a week. So what works? A metal that was valuable before the collapse and is respected as a means of facilitating trade.
I'm pretty close to the ocean, so a salt shortage is unlikely. In addition, considering how much salt is in all the processed food we eat, I suspect there's tons of the stuff waiting to be salvaged.
What about gasoline? I suspect that could become pretty valuable. Are there special rules for how large stockpiles need to be stored?
First rule of storing petrol: don't do it unless you really know the Health and Safety brick backwards.
Oh... and have invested in the best equipment to store it in (preferably not right up against the house, let alone in it)... and, better yet, get it out the storage.
There's a reason why the industry has to be as highly regulated as it is.
Suggestion: just don't. Let somebody else have the spontaneous combustion problem when they try doling it out to their nearest and dearest.
edited 21st Nov '12 6:56:06 PM by Euodiachloris
Not to steal your thunder, but plenty of people store gasoline in a non-prepper situation. It's as simple as keeping it in a can in the shed, the garage or your basement or even your car. I don't know what you would want to do if you intended to store a large amount, but for a generator, a car or other gasoline-powered device, plenty of people do it without incident.
OK — I'm basing this on the fact that the British Fire Department as a whole starts swearing when there's a run on petrol.
They know that for a few months afterwards, their workload is going up, as a lot of those people who think they know what they're doing with storage... stored more than they could cope with for the facilities they had and without knowing some of the crucial aspects of larger, longer-term storage of the stuff.
Wish I could point you to media examples of this... but most of my evidence was via BBC Radio 5Live at the time of the last one, and getting both phone-in fire fighters (and tanker truck drivers, oddly enough: one was very eloquent about how much you need to know about petrol before you should be allowed near the stuff) wanting to rant, as well as more official representatives of the service asking people to please... don't. Or this... rather extreme
... example happens. Granted, the woman was a dunderhead for doing what she did... but examples of this increase under panic conditions.
And, the many fire fighters who phoned in? Were of the opinion that their internal stats and studies indicate spikes in accidental fires related to fuel storage... as well as arson afterwards.
I tend to trust people who phone up to moan, "Oh, God... not again..."
edited 21st Nov '12 7:35:11 PM by Euodiachloris
I suspect there are more accidents than you're aware of, mate. The devil you think you know and are comfortable with is the one most likely to maul you.
As for that whole veiled "but, we in the US are better at this than you 'cos we do it a lot" thing going on in your post... right... British farmers, engineers, shed-enthusiasts and other handy folk don't exist at all, and wouldn't do similar things. Nope... Let alone our own preppers, be they dedicated or last-minute.
We're not all urban, you know.
edited 21st Nov '12 7:53:55 PM by Euodiachloris

They never managed to dig those pots up, probably as they didn't manage the important bit: keeping food in the pot.
So... six hundred years later, a guy with a metal detector gets lucky.
edited 21st Nov '12 12:15:17 AM by Euodiachloris