The short answer
A fake Breguet 5287 is any watch styled to look like the Breguet Classique Chronograph ref. 5287 without being one. The genuine piece is a hand-wound gold dress chronograph with an engine-turned dial, and the copies sit on a wide spectrum. Cheap ones cost less than a dinner and run on quartz. The better ones cost several hundred dollars, use a Chinese automatic chronograph movement, and fool people across a restaurant table. The gap between a good fake and the real watch lives in the dial texture, the movement, and the case finishing. Everything you can photograph from a foot away looks close.
What the real ref. 5287 is
Breguet positions the 5287 in its Classique line, which is the dressiest corner of the catalog. Figure a round gold case in the 42 mm range, a fluted caseband, straight welded lugs, sapphire front and back. The movement is hand-wound, calibre 533.2 on the standard reference, and it uses a silicon escapement, which is invisible from outside but matters for accuracy and service life.
The dial is the signature. Breguet cuts the pattern on a rose engine, a hand-operated lathe, and the result is crisp and even across the whole surface. The hands are blued steel with the hollowed tips the brand is known for, and the chronograph registers sit where the design says they should. It is a stopwatch built for a suit, not a track day.
Where the copies give themselves away
- Dial pattern. Real guilloché is cut into metal. Fakes usually stamp it or print it. Look at a low angle under a lamp: genuine engine turning shows depth and a faint hillside effect, while stamped patterns look flat and slightly soft at the edges.
- Hand finishing. On the real watch, anglage (the beveled edges of the bridges) is polished by hand and catches light as a continuous ribbon. On fakes it is often machine-done or missing, and the edges look dull or wavy.
- Case and lugs. Check the transition from lug to case. Copies tend to have a visible seam or a slightly thicker lug where the mold ran.
- Pushers and crown. A hand-wound chronograph has a specific feel at the pushers, firm with a clean reset. Most fakes feel spongy or grind.
- Weight and warmth. Gold has a density you notice in the hand. Plated brass or steel will feel lighter than it looks.
- Markings. Hallmarks, reference numbers, and engravings on a real Breguet are sharp and shallow. Fakes are often deeper or laser-etched with a faint halo.
The three tiers of fake
- Budget tier. Quartz, mineral glass, printed dial, plated case. Usually sold on marketplace apps or street corners. The chronograph pushers are decorative or run a fake subdial.
- Mid tier. Chinese automatic chronograph movement, sapphire crystal, decent case shape. The dial is stamped. This tier fools people who do not collect watches.
- High tier. Often called a super clone. Genuine ETA or clone movement with decorated bridges, closer case dimensions, sometimes an actual engine-turned dial. Still wrong in the details, and priced high enough that the value argument collapses.
Legal and practical reality
A watch carrying a trademarked logo it did not earn is a counterfeit, and importing or reselling one is illegal in the US and most of Europe. Customs seizes packages, and no seller guarantee survives that. Buying one for personal use is a gray area in practice, but the resale market for fakes is where people get burned, both by seizures and by sellers passing copies off as real.
If what you want is the look, an unbranded homage gets you the silhouette, the thin bezel, and the dress chronograph proportions without the legal exposure. It will not have the dial or the movement, but nobody is pretending otherwise.
What to check before you spend anything
- Ask for a photo of the caseback and the movement, not just the dial.
- Compare the reference number to the official spec sheet, including case diameter and thickness.
- Check the pusher feel and the reset snap, since that is hard to fake.
- Price the watch against the real market. If it is a few hundred dollars, it is a replica regardless of what the listing says.
- Assume no warranty and no service support.
Bottom line
The 5287 is a hand-finished object, and hand finishing is the one thing a factory cannot copy at scale. Fakes can nail the outline. They rarely nail the dial, the bevels, or the feel at the pushers. If you are buying the real thing, those are your tells. If you are buying a replica, go in knowing exactly what you are getting and what the risk is.