I would classify it as an "attempted counterfeit".
The 1/4 cent is about the same size as a 10 cent. It is, of course, made of bronze rather than silver. So what has happened here is that someone has taken a normal 1/4 cent, carved a crude "10" onto it, then they would have given it a silvery coating or paint (possibly by soaking it in liquid mercury) then they would have tried to spend it.
It wouldn't fool you or me - certainly not at that magnification, and not with the silvery coating having disappeared with time - but a counterfeiter only needs to fool one person, once, and it's job done as far as they are concerned. Counterfeiters don;t care what their coins will look like decades or centuries later.
Altering coins to make them look like a coin of higher denomination was and is a crime, with punishment similar to that of outright counterfeiting.
Don't say "infinitely" when you mean "very"; otherwise, you'll have no word left when you want to talk about something really infinite. - C. S. Lewis