I would think that for gold to be crisis hedge, society would have to collapse to within a relatively narrow range of chaos.
Collapse generally means deflation, cash would be king, like in the depression or late 2007, and things have to get very out of hand, government would have to disappear, for fiat currency to not be convertable. Stocks and real estate are an absolute hyper inflation hedge, right?
The thing I would more worry about is electric grid collapse, which has happened a couple of times in my area, with ice storms and the big northeast breakdown a decade or so back.
Try shutting off your main switch and then start thinking about how many hours you are from not having potable water, how you would cook your food, heat in the north in the winter or cool your house in Florida summer.
So if you have a wood burning fireplace, maybe you order a few extra cords to quietly sit out there in the backyard. If you have a well, you think about how you would get water out of it if the electric was down (hand crank backup?). If you have access to an unclean river or lake nearby, how would you sterilize the water without electricity. (tablets?)
When the power went down, my mom in her 20th floor condo was very vulnerable. Bought her a radio with batteries and a camping lamp with batteries. Had to walk up 20 flights for everything. So you have all these decisions to make and each has a robustness profile under the crisis lens.
My less urban relatives who are in the exoburbs and further on a couple of acres of land, independent well water, wood heating with electric backup, would be in much better shape during a crisis.
Putting some solar panels on your roof may not make financial sense, but it may make strategic sense, even if they can just generate enough power to keep a dehumidier running, your natural gas furnace running (if the pipelines are not down), your computer and wifi, if the internet is still up.
Propane tank gas stove could end up being worth a million dollars, as it may be the only way to cook food and sterilize water in the neighbourhood.
Access to a lake with fish, tools to catch them, a way to start fire to cook them. A small amount of thought and picking up a $20 rod at Walmart could be the difference between starving or not. If things have collapsed to the point that a dollar is no longer good, you are also going to need a gun to protect yourself from having that fishing rod or your gold taken from you.
Rather than gold, maybe fill a few shelves in the basement with canned stuff, with very long best before dates, that do not require cooking, and be sure to have a canopener and a backup.
Rather than gold, maybe a couple thousand paper one dollars in a safe in case the bank machines and electronic payments systems go down. We used to try to keep a couple thousand low denomination in the safe, and this ended up being very handy in a couple of tricky situations.
Yes I are are a Boglehead having tryed a lot of other things.
