The idea behind barter items is sound, until your barter partner has no need or want of what you have = enter gold or silver. Mankind is fairly consistent in his historical use of a fungible proxy (read: money), and once one gets over the mental hurdle of junk silver being a coin, and having not coin value but value as to what it holds (precious metal), the idea of it makes perfect sense. This is why the "Federal" Reserve has pushed to simply have it be a fiat currency rather than actually contain precious metal, and that socialist rat Roosevelt/EO 6102 came to pass. "Money" made from the same material which is strung along every roadside instantly devalues the money as a fungible proxy in a non-standard economic situation.

I'm not sure how ingots satisfy the idea of wealth preservation any more than that same amount of silver or gold in smaller, more manageable quantities. It is like one saying it's better to have an artillery round instead of cases of 5.56; it supposes one can find someone with a howitzer or other use for the round vs the manageable trade value of carbine rounds in quantities of say... 10.

Since the initial stages of a SHTF/bartering/silver/gold situation would see high demand and low supply, an ingot or high quantity of silver would be like having a $1000 bill at a yard sale with no ability for the seller to make change. It's so valuable it becomes worthless in a practical sense.

And one can never fully prepare. There is always something they forgot or didn't know they'd need or didn't have enough of. Is one really going to trade a silver ingot for an asthma inhaler or a set of extra prescription glasses, or whatever...?

There's also the fact that not engaging in the barter/buy market tips ones hand as being full of goods everyone else wants. So in this sense, engaging in the market is a hedge against tipping ones hand to the market as being fully supplied. This also brings up a point I've often thought about -- appearing to maintain weight or even gain it while everyone else is losing weight. Say you have 3 years worth of food... DO NOT EAT LIKE YOU HAVE 3 YEARS WORTH OF FOOD. As such, fasting to engage in a psyop is probably advisable until most are dead or too weak to put 2 and 2 together. Don't starve yourself, but definitely think about the image you present in a situation.

Another good item: cheap vodka or whiskey. Lasts indefinitely and has multiple uses (medical, trade, keeping the local alkie from getting DTs, etc.)

There are tons of "what if" scenarios. Frankly, that what if might be, "what if I just die within the first few minutes; what do I do when I do, whenever that is?" On that note, the best disaster/SHTF preparation is a solid spiritual life.

No one escapes death. So that is the best thing to be prepared for, as it's much more inevitable than James Wesley, Rawles deepest, darkest nightmares. It's more inevitable than malaria in Conrad's darkest Africa or being raped in Lawrence's Arabia. No man escapes it.