Are you only buying the physical product then and not buying any gold on paper? It would seem that actual physical gold and buying on paper for speculation are 2 completely different things. Instead of having cash in a safe then do some people have gold in a safe? I guess I can see a reason for maybe having some gold instead of cash. I would guess that there are very few people that have either cash or gold to fall back on if they need it but it might not be a bad idea to have some of one or the other.