The pick, before anything else
Buy the top-tier hand-wound replica with a real one-minute tourbillon, the version the bigger factories sell for about $1,000 to $1,600. That is the only tier I would wear. Below it you are paying for a decorated movement and a hole cut in the dial, and the illusion collapses the second someone at the table knows what a tourbillon looks like in motion.
fake tourbograph watch history
The watch being copied is A. Lange & Söhne's Tourbograph Perpetual Pour le Mérite, a 50-piece limited edition in honey gold that stacks a tourbillon, a rattrapante chronograph, a perpetual calendar, and a fusée-and-chain transmission into one movement. No replica gets the chain. None gets the finishing. The question is only how much of the visible watch you get for your money.
What separates the tiers
I check four things, in this order.
The cage. On the good version the tourbillon cage turns once a minute and you can see the escape wheel inside it. On cheap ones the cage is static and the balance swings behind a fake bridge. Ask for a video with the running seconds in frame. If the seller only has stock photos, walk away.
fake tourbograph watch features
The calendar. Real perpetual calendar work is expensive to copy. Most reps drive the day, date, and month windows off a 24-hour wheel, so the date jumps at noon or never moves at all. Better versions advance the moonphase disc on a proper 29.5-day cycle.
The rattrapante pusher. Lange puts the split-seconds pusher at 10 o'clock. Plenty of replicas fit a pusher there that does nothing. Press it and watch whether the split hand stops and catches up.
The case. The original is a thick watch, close to 15mm, and honest reps follow that. When a listing brags about an 11mm case, the proportions are wrong. Honey gold is a warm, muted tone. Yellow-gold plating looks brassy in daylight and gives the whole thing away.
Other options
Mid tier, about $500 to $700
This is where most buyers land. You get correct dial geometry, a hand-wound movement with engraved bridges, and a working chronograph, but the tourbillon is usually a balance wheel under an open bridge. Fine at dinner, not for a collector. If the budget is firm, buy this and skip the entry level.
Entry tier, under $300
These exist mostly to be photographed. Subdials are printed or glued, the case is plated brass, and the strap smells like a new tire. I would rather put the money toward one decent watch than three of these.
Verdict
The top tier wins on the only thing that matters here: motion. A Tourbograph replica with a live cage and a moonphase that moves reads as a serious watch across a table. Everything cheaper reads as a watch-shaped object. Save for the good one, ask for video before you pay, and accept that the fusée and chain stayed in Glashütte.