That's what they don't tell you.
You buy junk silver with dollars and you sell junk silver with dollars.
It's not money - it's a commodity - one with only maintains it's current value due to a group of people who think it has some inherent worth.
Great Britain used to use pieces of wood for their currency (tally sticks). Nothing special about gold or silver in a monetary way.
“Nothing special about gold or silver in a monetary way.”
I respectfully disagree. Both gold and silver have numerous uses in industry and high tech. Silver in particular is critical for all sorts of tech manufacturing. Both of these materials are expensive to extract and available only in limited quantities. US dollars on the other hand are created a trillion at a time whenever our politicians find it convenient to do so.
I think this is better discussed in terms of the value of the US dollar. The US dollar used to be worth 1/30th of an ounce of gold. Currently it’s worth 1/1,880th of an ounce of gold.