That being said, over very long time horizons it is difficult to see why the real price of gold would change. They probably aren't going to mine it any cheaper and it isn't crazy to handwave an argument that demand can't drop all that far from where it is now. On that basis it easily outperforms cash.
If interest rates stay near 0 or drop negative gold might outperform bonds too. It is hard to say; the central banks do strange things to the bond markets.
Also, note that all these graphs only go back to the 1970s. Bit of a mystery why [1]. Gold's value tends to transcend such short-term concerns as the current global financial regime and that is a draw for some. Personally I think the current US dollar system is getting a bit long in the tooth. The biggest draw in this regard is that gold is a real expensive thing that is exceptionally easy to store (ignoring theft risks) and it is just hard to see how it could become less valuable than it is right now (short of government bans on gold trading).
[0] https://upfina.com/gold-vs-inflation/ particularly "Longer Term Correlation Between Real Gold & TIPS Doesn’t Hold Up"
[1] That was when the last monetary system failed https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bretton_Woods_system
There are still market cycles for gold, and also if you're going physical, there's 2-3% exchange cost as well.
Silver may or may not have a VAT problem in your country.
Am I right in thinking that gold/silver are widely thought to be inflation proof? So I wasn't so concerned about growth could I just park my money in gold?