The short answer
Most fake Breguet Tourbillon 5287s sell in two forms. The cheap one, usually under $150, is not a tourbillon at all: an opening at 6 o'clock with a balance wheel spinning behind it, and the small seconds somewhere else on the dial. The other kind carries a working flying tourbillon, almost always a Chinese hand-wound caliber from the Seagull ST8000 family or a Hangzhou equivalent, fitted into a gold-plated case with an engraved dial. That version starts near $250 and runs past $1,000 once the dial and movement finishing improve.
Neither is the watch Breguet makes. The real reference uses an 18k gold case, an engine-turned dial, blued steel hands and a tourbillon built in-house. The tiers get photographed to look identical, so the only reliable way to judge one is to test the movement and inspect the case, not the listing photos.
Real tourbillon or a spinning balance wheel
This is the first test and it costs one video. Ask the seller to film the watch running with a phone timer in frame for 70 seconds. In a real tourbillon the whole carriage rotates once a minute, so the timing is easy to confirm. In a fake, the cage sits still and only the balance wheel inside swings back and forth. Stills tell you nothing, and a five second clip tells you almost nothing.
Second check: where is the small seconds? On a genuine tourbillon the seconds hand rides on the carriage at 6 o'clock. If the photos show a running seconds subdial at 9 o'clock, or no seconds hand at all, the tourbillon is decorative.
What shows on the wrist
- Case band. Breguet coins the middle of the case with fine fluting. Good replicas cut it, cheap ones print it or skip it.
- Lugs. Welded, gently curved, with a clean line into the case. Screwed-on bar lugs are a giveaway at arm's length.
- Dial. Hand guilloché has depth and shifts in light. Stamped patterns look shallow, and printed ones look flat from any angle.
- Hands. Blued Breguet hands with hollow eccentric tips. Painted steel reads blue-black, not deep blue, and the tips are filled in.
- Crystal. Domed sapphire with real clarity. Mineral glass hazes and scratches within months.
- Caseback. Engraving should be crisp and deep. Buffed-out or shallow text means a low grade case.
Movement, accuracy and service
Chinese tourbillons are honest mechanical watches, but they are not regulated to chronometer standards. Expect roughly plus or minus 15 to 30 seconds a day out of the box, a power reserve near 40 hours, and little to no water resistance no matter what the spec sheet claims. Parts are scarce in the US, and plenty of watchmakers will decline the job because a service can cost more than the watch. If the movement stops, the practical fix is usually replacement, not repair.
US price bands
- Under $120: look-alike. Open aperture, no rotating carriage. Common on marketplace listings.
- $250 to $500: real flying tourbillon, basic finishing, sapphire or mineral crystal, gold plating.
- $600 to $1,200: decorated bridges, better dial texture, closer case proportions, sometimes a solid gold case. Verify the gold claim, since plating and solid gold look the same in photos.
Checks before you pay
- 70 second running video with a timer in frame.
- Sharp photos of the caseback, including any hallmark, serial and the Swiss made text.
- Ask plainly whether the tourbillon carriage rotates once per minute, and get the answer in writing.
- Confirm the return window and who pays return shipping.
- Pay with a method that carries buyer protection. Bank transfer and crypto do not.
- Ask about spare crowns, hands and a strap. Odd sizes are hard to replace.
What the replica never gets right
The dial. Breguet engine-turning happens on a rose engine, and the pattern is cut into metal, not stamped into it. The hands are heat blued, the case is gold with the right weight and feel, and the movement is finished to a standard a $400 watch cannot reach. On the wrist the replica often runs a little larger and thicker than the genuine dress watch, which is the tell most people notice without knowing why.
Legal side in the US
Counterfeit watches are prohibited imports, and CBP can seize them at the border. Selling them is trademark infringement and carries real exposure. Buying one for personal use is lower risk than selling, but the package can still disappear in customs. Resale value is close to zero, so treat the money as spent on a novelty, not on a watch collection.