Spot Gold & Money Creation
Crystalline Gold nugget
I suppose when the world starts working again gold is bound to rise to compensate for the unbelievable money creation that is yet to show its ugly head. The money supply is related to velocity which has been practically zero so no matter how much the Fed prints, unless it starts jobs or lending we are held in check. Just as soon as we bottom out and job growth starts up GOLD is where the action is going to be.
Unlike Iron, lead or aluminum gold does not corrode and decay. You could put gold in the ocean for 100′s of years and it does not disintegrate. It passes thru generations and is still considered a monetary reserve by EVERY nation in the world. It’s value is given by you and me. If we decided stinky, dead rotting fish was a monetary reserve imagine the stink in Fort Knox and wall street. 
I really don’t see a big difference as the Printing presses go into overdrive in the Developed world to prevent a monetary crisis.
Think about it, we rapidly increase the amount of money to stabilize money. If gold could be created the same way, it wouldn’t be worth much in the Future.
Herkimer Diamonds
Paper currencies are not totally worthless, there is the worth of the paper itself to consider.
In the 1920s, the Printing presses went to work in Germany in an attempt to jump start their economy in the aftermath of WW1. All it led to was Hyperinflation.
Gold Coins
In a financial crisis and recession, shorting gold for financing represents an almost exponential amount of risk, since you´re shorting something that performs very well (theoretically) in a recession because it´s a store of value. Also, you would typically use this financing to buy much higher yielding debt, and during a financial crisis the risk of this debt defaulting goes up. Thus, you have gold going up in value and the value of your bond going down if things get worse, and that represents a very large amount of risk, since you could theoretically be out an infinite amount of money if gold went up in value an infinite amount (that would never happen, but it´s what could happen theoretically).
Metal Detectors
Because of clever manipulations of gold swaps and leases and other paper games and in some cases even outright sales of physical gold by governments that are desperately trying to keep the right to print money, most people are unaware or still not convinced of the value of the precious metals and don’t consider paper to be just that paper… yet.
Gram Scale