If you searched for a fake Tourbograph 510.105, the honest answer comes first: the best pick is not a counterfeit. It is either the genuine A. Lange & Söhne Tourbograph Perpetual Pour le Mérite, or for a normal budget, a well-finished chronograph from a legitimate brand that makes no false claims about what is inside. I compared every option on four criteria: the movement that is genuinely in the case, how the dial and case finishing hold up in hand rather than in photos, the legal exposure of buying and importing the watch, and whether anyone will still service it in ten years.

What reference 510.105 actually points to

The Tourbograph sits at the top of the Lange catalogue. It is a hand-wound watch built around a tourbillon with a fusée-and-chain transmission, paired with a chronograph and, in the Perpetual Pour le Mérite generation, a perpetual calendar. Numbers in that reference family get quoted constantly in replica listings and forum threads, and 510.105 appears in that grey-market context far more often than in published brand material. Before you treat the number as a real configuration, check it against a Lange boutique or an auction archive. A listing that leads with a reference number and a very low price is a red flag before it is a watch.

Option 1: Genuine Tourbograph Perpetual Pour le Mérite

  • Pros: a real fusée-and-chain tourbillon, hand-finished bridges and anglage visible through the back, a perpetual calendar that is set correctly, a documented service path, and strong secondary value.
  • Cons: cost in the six-figure range, limited allocation, insurance and servicing obligations, and a watch you will think twice about wearing on a commute.

Use case: the collector who wants the complication, not the silhouette, and who buys once with paperwork.

Option 2: A legitimate chronograph with the same visual language

Several established brands sell hand-wound or automatic chronographs with sector dials, applied numerals, blued hands and a similar case proportion. None of them are a Tourbograph, and none of them pretend to be.

  • Pros: a warranty, a service network in most US cities, honest materials, no customs risk, and resale that is weak but not zero.
  • Cons: no tourbillon, a different movement architecture, and anyone who knows watches will read it as a different watch immediately.

Use case: daily wear, a first serious watch, or a piece you can hand to a jeweler for a strap change without a conversation.

Option 3: A Chinese counterfeit sold as a "Tourbograph 510.105"

  • Pros: photographs convincingly at a distance, costs a fraction of the real thing, and you will not lose sleep over a scratch.
  • Cons: importing counterfeit trademarked goods is illegal and shipments get seized; the "tourbillon" is often a decorative oscillating weight or a basic cage with none of the finishing the dial implies; gold tone plating wears through at the lugs and crown; there are no spare parts, so a dropped watch becomes scrap; water resistance is unverified; resale is close to nothing; and selling it on as genuine exposes you to civil and criminal liability.

Use case: none I would recommend. If one is already in a drawer, treat it as costume: do not swim in it, do not represent it as genuine, and do not pass it to a buyer who thinks otherwise.

Option 4: A Chinese-made skeleton tourbillon under its own brand

A small group of Chinese manufacturers sell real tourbillons under their own names. The finishing is a clear step below Glashütte standards, but the complication is genuine and the branding is honest.

  • Pros: an actual working tourbillon at an accessible price, no trademark exposure, and increasingly respectable case work.
  • Cons: flat polishing and machine-brushed bridges, weak resale, and service that depends entirely on the seller staying in business.

Use case: you want to watch a tourbillon move on your wrist and you want to keep your paperwork clean.

The five-minute check before any payment

  1. Ask for a clear macro photo of the movement through the caseback, not a stock image.
  2. Confirm whether the seller describes the watch as a replica in writing. If the listing avoids the word, walk away.
  3. Check the reference number against a brand boutique, an auction archive or a collector database.
  4. Ask what happens if customs holds the parcel, and who absorbs the loss.
  5. Ask which watchmaker will service it and where the parts come from.

Bottom line

The 510.105 number is the easiest part of this search to get wrong, because it circulates mostly through listings rather than catalogues. Buy the genuine watch if the complication is the point. Buy a legitimate chronograph or an honest Chinese tourbillon if the look is the point. Skip the counterfeit, which is the only option on this list that carries legal risk, no service path and a near-total loss of value the moment the parcel arrives.