18xx-S Seated Liberty Quarter Dollar - Last Two Digits?

That zoomed in photo of the date region convinces me this coin was doctored. Not only is the cameo effect unnatural (you can see where they painted on the oxidizer and smeared some a bit too high), but the date has been tooled and sanded down to conceal it. The 1 and the 8 are sanded almost flat along with the other digits to hide the modification and make a date of 1872 plausible. There is no way the coin would have natural wear of those digits all the way down, when the date is still protected by the rim and the base of liberty seated.

From the junk silver bin, it rises to tell its sordid tale again. This is what I love about this forum.

I have been learning quite a lot here, and wanted to thank all for thoughts and input. My sort of final opinion would be that this is an 1877-S quarter. Period. I can't see anything that can overcome the evidence for that determination.

That said, I don't believe that the hard stuff on/around the date was put there to do date mischief, but I am starting to believe that it was used for that purpose. The 18 are almost certainly sanded down, while parts of the other two numbers seem worked a bit to get them where they are. Originally I thought someone found a dateless coin and just removed stuff until they got the date. But now I am pretty sure that at least some effort was made to make the thing look as much like an 1872 as possible.

So from my end I believe it would be reasonable to call this a counterfeit 1872. Which would be great as I collect counterfeits and this would be a neat addition to that part of my collection.