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What a banknote is
A banknote is paper or polymer money. It is a promise, not a piece of metal. In the United States today that promise is the dollar, not a pile of silver.
A banknote is a piece of paper, or polymer, that counts as money.
It is not valuable because of the paper. It is valuable because people and courts treat it as dollars, or pounds, or yen.
How that used to work
Some notes were a claim on metal. A silver certificate once meant you could get silver. A gold certificate once meant gold. Those claims ended. The notes can still have collector value. They are not a ticket for metal anymore. Certificates explained. Fiat.
How it works now
A Federal Reserve note is legal tender. You can pay a dollar debt with it. Legal tender. The government does not hand you gold for it. What the Fed is. What a dollar is.
Collecting notes
People collect stars, seals, series years, and fancy serial numbers. Condition matters more than it does on junk silver. Do not iron a note. Do not tape it. How to read a US note. Horse blanket notes.
More on the coin and money library.