"So he purchased his gold at $1900oz, at its peak. Yeah he may have lost a bunch of fiat dollars but he hedged himself against inflation and never lost any buying power with his gold, if he would have kept in in dollars his buying power would have went way down between 2011 and today. "

I am trying to wrap my head around this. Can he now buy more stuff with his gold than he could have in 2011? Or, can he convert it into more cash? How has he hedged himself against inflation if the value is priced in dollars and the price fell as compared to those dollars? Sure, if gold goes up in value he will have ok, but it hasn't. At this point if he cashes out he loses. If he waits he may or may not gain value. If he had kept it in the bonds at just the rate of inflation he would be doing better.
My wife's family bought some land Tennessee in the 1950's that is supposed to have oil on it. They keep talking about how much it is going to be worth someday, but the cost of extraction is still higher than the value of the oil at this point. If they invested that money in land in the Seattle area or put it into stocks, adding in the property tax they pay every year, we would all be millionaires. Every thing needs to be taken into consideration. If the investor above had bought real estate with his money it easily would have doubled in many markets. What if he had bought stocks. What if he had left it in the bank at 1%. And then bought gold today? In any of these situations, would he have more or less gold today?