Gold is good to have because it is the ultimate barter item. Having gold in discrete and easily understood amounts and formats i.e. in dust, coin, or bar as opposed to fillings, earrings and other ornamental items form aids in trade in a situation where a government supplied currency is either deeply discounted or not being accepted in trade. The jewelry is still useful but it's not as frictionless as coins etc are.
There is a concept in barter called "coincidence of wants" which means to exchange each person needs what the other has. You have a display case that is in bad repair and you want some measure, weight, and color of fabric. Finding someone with the fabric who also wants a broken display case is a high cost and perhaps impossible situation.
The next step is triangulating. You take your case and trade for anything that is more acceptable to a wider range of people. Foodstuffs, cosmetics, ammo, alcohol. Now it just got easier to get your fabric. However you likely still have a few more steps to go so what you need is something anybody will take. Even if they don't care for it they know they can trade to the next person.
Historically a few items became the ultimate trade item. For example cows, salt, tobacco, nails, silver and finally gold.
Gold won out because it does not rust,corrode or rot, it's infinitely malleable and easy to determine how valuable any given piece is.
Any system of trade needs a foundation and for over 5000 years gold has been in that foundation and has been the most important item. When people ask "why gold?" Because you cannot eat it, you cannot use it to shelter yourself, it doesn't do anything and it has no warmth to impart so why have it? Why is it valuable?
The answer is it's valuable because it's job is to be how we count success. Gold coins and bars are like the tokens in game. The more you receive the better at the game you are. We need playing pieces in the great game and gold, while not perfect, is the best we've got. And our need for this measurement is what imparts the mostly subjective value to this yellow metal.
So refusing to own gold is essentially turning your back on a proven technology. Which is not to say you should only have gold. Having a bunch of other stuff is also vital.
That said, you don't need a lot. In a currency crisis prices will adjust to match what people can offer. The situation may be massively deflationary and quite full of suck but if you have some gold or silver coins you might be able to ride it out.
Also, there is a concept called "freegold" which is the idea that gold prices will shoot up very rapidly hitting $25,000-30,000+ Oz in just a few days or weeks. However the prices of most everything else will lag some so that the Oz you bought at @ $1600 is suddenly worth 15x it's value in goods you may need. So You quickly sell your Oz and then go on a buying spree to get all the food and ammo and whatever else will get you and yours through the hard times before the prices reset.
So if you are thinking about giving gold a pass, maybe think again and tuck a little bit away. Even if it (like mine) is in jewelery form. (My wife wants to keep the jewelery instead of trade it for coins, eh..what can you do?)
Of course all these problems stem from the fact that some people think that it is possible to increase the wealth of a country through currency manipulation. Put an end to that and many of the problems disappear.
