I bought a lot of Mercury dimes that were advertised as dug and cleaned, and got exactly what was promised (although there were more there than I thought -- it was quite a deal). To my surprise, though, a lot of them had XF or better details. I sure wish whoever dug them had known better. I found this one near the end of the lot: Sigh. Even scrubbed as it is, this one may be worth almost as much as the rest of the lot combined; it's certainly worth more than I paid for the lot. I may put it up on eBay with an ambitious BIN, enable offers, and see what happens. This one got AU Details (?!) from PCGS, and went for $160; this one, raw, got $79. You never can tell what people will be willing to pay...
He could be a rubber, digging them up and rubbing them off. The grains of rocks and such in the dirt can cause a lot of hairlines on the coin. A tip for new metal detectorists, have patience and don't rub your silver in the field.
It looks more cleaned than rubbed though. Edited: Though I don't know, here's a good example of a rubbed coin. Regardless if it cleaned or rubbed, it is still a very bad mistake for the guy who found them to do.
Oh, I'd list it with these very photos, most likely, so that the scratches are clearly visible. I'd also state that I was told it was a metal-detector find, it's obviously been cleaned, but it still shows XF detail. (XF by eBay/modern PCGS standards, if not by the actual book.)
