Does it really make sense to buy gold, silver or any other precious metal as a hedge against inflation?
Take gold for example, although there is a slight disagreement on how much gold is available (has been mined already) in the world, but the numbers are around 190,000 tonnes. That is in the whole world. If you do the math, keep in mind that each imperial ton is 1000 kg and each kg is 1000 grams and that the troy ounce is 31.10 (roughly) grams. Then, also roughly, there is just little bit over 6 billion ounces of gold in the world. If you remember that the population of the world is over 7 billion people, that means there is less then one ounce for every person on the planet.
The vast majority of this gold is being held by institutions such as banks and governments. Also, there is a lot of paper gold, that is contracts written on gold, which biases the price of gold drastically. But as far as the average person holding gold as a replacement of currency or for hedge, it is not practical or valid economic argument.
This is not a cash-flow producing asset, so as a commodity its price is manipulated by the same people who manipulable the currency. That means gold and FIAT money are now controlled by the same "bank". Also, there is not enough of it to be used outside the "monetary system". There is not enough of it to go around and make it a replacement currency.