Hence the name 'con artist'.
Doug, it is not easy to put into words and, as I've said elsewhere before, I don't claim to be able to spot every
fake sand
patina and not falsely condemn a single genuine one. With that out of the way, a few things that stand out are that this
fake patina is often shiny and has a coarser appearance than genuine sand
patina, with bumps and bubbles. The sand
patina as a whole is often very regular, like this coin for example, which I find very convincing.
Here's an example of the coarseness. This one was even identified as having an artificial sand
patina.
This is a particularly bad example where you can see the artificial
patina beneath the artificial sand
patina.
I can't prove that they are by the same hand, of course, but I personally have no doubt.