Originally Posted by
edwards183
But in reality since those coins are readily exchangeable with Federal Reserve Notes, there really is no difference. And those notes cannot be exchanged for silver or gold anymore so coins are just as much fiat as notes. Coin seigniorage is a technical holdover from when the monetary base was precious metal.
Federal Reserve Notes could NEVER be exchanged for silver or gold, unless you were buying the metals at their prevailing spot price and used them as currency. Silver Certificates and Gold Certificates were the only instruments that had the metal redemption feature, until 1968 and 1933 respectively.