I've read the series before, but am bored and am rereading it.

On thing that bothered me the first time and is still bothering me on the 2nd time around.  

For those who haven't read it, basically a volcano erupts in the pacific north west.  This is soon followed by collapse of the nations economy and all that that entails.  Main character (Drummond) ends up overseeing a convenience store that is now used as a barter station.  Him and his buddy come up with a exchange rate for people wanting to use gold/silver for purchases.

Here is an excerpt from the book....

“It’ll be ten dollars eighty cents for the fuel and ammunition. We used precrash
prices in Federal Reserve Dollars, and then used pre-First Depression
values of silver and gold. Pretty much cut prices to twenty percent of what they
were before the crash.”

Guy is paying with a $20 gold piece (1 oz gold).  To me he is getting screwed.  If they use pre first depression value of gold and silver, wouldn't it make sense to also use pre first depression prices of goods?  So little over half an ounce of gold for some coleman fuel and a brick of .22LR.  Wonder if Drummond has a neckbeard.....

I read the first book by Thomas Sherry and thought it was awful. The main character seemed like a real know it all asshole. Their was never any character development beyond Rick Drummond. It was like all the other characters were idiots and Rick was there to guide them along through a difficult time with his never ending wisdom. I kinda wanted to know how the next two books played out but I know for a fact there is no way I could get through them. I struggled real hard to finish his first book. Also the story was very boring nothing hardly ever happened, it was just hey we encountered a problem oh I have just the thing for that in my garage problem solved.

I recently re-read all three.
The third remains the weakest of the trilogy, it feels like he had to find a way to wrap it up.
Number four which I don't have a copy of reportedly goes back to the timeframe of book one

I believe he is a member here, perhaps you can PM him?

Deep Winter and Shatter were what started me on reading in this genre. I LOVED them but now that I've read a ton more and written some myself, I dont want to go back and re-read in case I start to pick up on some of the criticisms that I see in reviews for it. kind of like going back and watching cartoons you loved as a kid and they dont hold up. I dont want to ruin that for myself even if my first book was originally intended to be a tag along in Tom Sherry's Deep Winter universe.

As far as the gold trading, youve got to remember these were written ten plus years ago when the exchange rates were different and understanding of such may have not been on expert level. Just enjoy  the story.