I can’t speak to silver, but I know that gold had two important dates—there was 1933, when FDR banned private gold ownership, and then there was IIRC 1971, when Bretton Woods collapsed and Nixon formally ended gold convertibility. For the decades in between, gold notes were formally convertible, but not to ordinary citizens, only to banks(generally, foreign central banks).
I can’t speak to silver, but I know that gold had two important dates—there was 1933, when FDR banned private gold ownership, and then there was IIRC 1971, when Bretton Woods collapsed and Nixon formally ended gold convertibility. For the decades in between, gold notes were formally convertible, but not to ordinary citizens, only to banks(generally, foreign central banks).
The ban on gold wasn’t indefinite, IIRC. It doesn’t much matter though.
It wasn’t repealed until the Ford administration.