"How rare is gold? If you could gather together all the gold mined in recorded history, melt it down, and pour it into one giant cube, it would measure only about eighteen yards across! That's all the gold owned by every government on earth, plus all the gold in private hands, all the gold in rings, necklaces, chains, and gold art. That's all the gold used in tooth fillings, in electronics, in coins and bars. It's everything that exists above ground now, or since man learned to extract the metal from the earth. All of it can fit into one block the size of a single house. It would weigh about 91,000 tons - less than the amount of steel made around the world in an hour. That's rare." - Daniel M. Kehrer

Wow, that's pretty interesting--thanks for the factoid!

Let's call it even a little more than 130K 'short' tons (2000lbs/ton - the US measure). That's still very rare, particularly compared with silver. And that the guesstimate for all of history, recorded or otherwise.

In a general and widespread emergency, with the collapse of a central authority, which seems to be the context here, the questions might be - would silver be valued more highly, or gold less? Would there continue to be a rarity or numismatic value associated with each, as minted? (presumeably, it would be inescapable) Would the old currency be accepted, particularly paper notes? Etc. And what authority might be generally accepted who would produce new money?