Good article - and one of the main reasons I'm coming to precious metals very late in my preparedness. It's like anything else - it's going to depend on the type of apocalypse.
I've been starting with silver and the other day I researched something like "Venezuela silver value" and got back to back hits of "An oz of silver can buy you six months of food in Venezuela" and "Silver can't buy food in Venezuela because the food is too hard to come by, so no one's giving it up". sometimes the more you study, the more it seems like a craps shoot.
I'm a rank beginner - almost at the "for dummies" level, but the thing driving me is that ups and downs in the market won't come in to play if there's a collapse. If there's no viable government currency, it's going to be its own thing.
The reason I haven't got into gold yet is I'd want to keep it small - think about what I'm going to want to buy - probably not going to need a car or house. How do I make change for a $2K chunk of gold when I want food or seeds or a tool? You start pulling out way too big amounts of gold, I think some people will be inclined to barter very small amounts of lead for it.