I'm aware of the goldbacks, I have a few from Navada. I got them a year or so ago when I was passing threw. They look good. I don't know how useful they would be out of state but they are gold backed and should retain their value.
What happens to a $10 goldback if the price of gold doubles?
I guess the value would double buy the denomination would remain a 10 dollar gold back bill. So if I could buy 10 loaves of bread when the price doubles I'd be able to buy 20 loaves of bread with the same bill.
Partner retailers that advertise that they accept goldbacks have their cashiers trained on how to convert and check out.
I don't know how useful they would be out of state...
Never 'spend them for face value.' Gold's value (and all other precious and semi precious metals) is constantly changing. If you were interested in getting the money back out of them, sell them privately. If you were to use the smallest one, I believe it's face value is at a dollar, it's worth around 8 or more dollars, now. (You probably knew, but maybe someone that didn't will read that.)
I never got into those, even when they were I think free. You can't really extract the gold or even verify it's gold. It's basically just an expensive ornate bill, a numismatic novelty (IMO).
You can always go to the goldbacks website and look up current conversion rates
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