As for Denominating it.. you buy diverse amts.
I have everything from one gram bars up to one ounce. I also have silver in small and large sizes.. as well as junk silver.
Verifying is simple.. go on amazon and buy a test kit.
I dont plan on carrying it around with me all the time.. and if I am buying something that might cost 5 bucks.. I will have that and only that amt of silver on me at that time.
Also a bit of research on gold and weights and karats helps as well..
REFERENCE NUMBERS
1 troy oz = 31.10347 grams
1 av oz = 28.34952 grams
1 gram = 0.03215 troy oz
24k gold= total wt is pure 100% gold
18k gold = .75 x total weight is gold
14k gold =.58333 x total weight is gold
12k gold = .50 x total weight is gold
10k gold=.43667 x total weight is gold
Granted its not foolproof.. but it is a good thing to have once you have everything else in place.
That said.. I have enough of the other barter items so whatever becomes important for barter, I will have most of my bases covered.
That isn't exactly small denominations.
The question is, would you accept gold payment from a complete stranger? I would not, without a third party verifier or a scientific method of verifying weight, purity, etc.
I would not accept a $1700 in $100 bills from a stranger without very close examination of the bills, and I feel a lot more comfortable with that.
Drilling in from the side of a 1oz coin, replacing with lead, and then resurfacing the edge could easily remove 20-30% of the gold without having to have top notch counterfeiting skills.