In the case of localised economic disasters
Gold and silver are excellent ways to preserve your purchasing power, when the economy crashes your silver will still be worth something to someone and so even when the Rand slides against the dollar physical precious metals still hold value.

Paper money and coins with a face value can easily lose value when inflation hits and can be devalued by the central banks — silver and gold bars cannot be.

Coins like the Mandela coin are based not on the value of the metal but the value people are prepared to pay for the face value – this is highly inflated.

Throughout History one ounce of gold used to buy 15 ounces of silver. Today you can buy around 43 ounces of silver with one ounce of gold, meaning that silver is extremely undervalued based on historical valuation against gold.
that said it stands that Silver should be at 120 dollars an ounce today just to catch up with this ratio of 1/15 and also that the price of silver is bound to rise.

Diamonds are not really the best investment as they can be manufactured and their value has not even kept up with inflation. They do offer some benefits as they are rather small but they can also not be divided and used as currency.

To hedge your income I would recommend silver coins and a few small gold bars, even pistol and rifle new brass casings in various calibres and a few kg’s of scrap lead,(about R20 a kg) as these can be traded for smaller items and can be legally owned and their value is always quoted in dollars….

If nothing even happens that you need to sell them… keep them and sell them when you retire — and you will have extra money, an if you need them… well they are there for you