The short answer
A "fake Villeret Grande Complication" is a case and dial that copy the look of a Blancpain Villeret, wrapped around a movement that does none of the things the name promises. There is no Chinese replica of this watch that chimes, splits a chronograph second, or tracks a leap year. If a seller tells you otherwise, they are selling a story, not a watch.
What the genuine watch is
Blancpain's Villeret Grande Complication line packs several high complications into one movement: a minute repeater that chimes the time on demand, a split-seconds (rattrapante) chronograph, and a perpetual calendar. Some versions add a tourbillon. That is several hundred parts working together, hand-finished, cased in gold, and priced in the six figures on the secondary market. Watches like this are built in small numbers because assembly takes months and only a handful of watchmakers can do it.
Why a copy cannot exist at replica prices
Copy those three complications separately and you already have a difficult, costly watch. Put them in one movement and the difficulty multiplies, because the repeater and the chronograph compete for the same space, and the calendar has to know which years are leap years. No factory turning out cheap wholesale watches has the tooling, the parts supply, or the staff for that. So the trade does the next cheapest thing: it fakes the outside.
What the fakes usually are
- A quartz or basic automatic movement behind a dial with printed subdials.
- A decorative slider on the case side that moves nothing.
- A skeleton or open-heart dial used to hide the fact that there is no repeating mechanism to show.
- Chronograph pushers that are glued in place, or one pusher where a split-seconds needs two plus the rattrapante.
- Caseback engraving that copies Blancpain text, reference numbers, and hallmarks.
How to tell one apart
- Ask it to chime. A real minute repeater rings two gongs with a clear note. A fake clicks or stays silent.
- Start the chronograph and split it. On a genuine rattrapante, one hand stops while the other keeps running. On a fake, both stop or nothing happens.
- Check the calendar logic. A perpetual calendar rolls from February 28 to March 1 in a non-leap year by itself. A fake shows a plain date or a fixed dial.
- Measure the thickness. Grande complication movements are deep. A thin case with a busy dial is a giveaway.
- Weigh it and check the edges. Gold has a density that plated brass and cheap steel do not.
- Look at the price. This is the fastest test of all. Genuine examples trade for more than most houses.
The legal side in the US
Trafficking in counterfeit goods is a federal crime under 18 U.S.C. 2320, and US Customs and Border Protection seizes counterfeit watches at the border. Buying one for personal use carries lower risk than selling, but importing, shipping, or reselling them is not a gray area. Passing a fake off as genuine adds wire fraud and mail fraud, and the dollar figure involved usually pushes it to a felony.
One more practical point: no independent watchmaker will service these. Parts do not exist, and the movement inside was never designed to be repaired.
If you want the look
You can get the classic Villeret silhouette, thin bezel, roman numerals, small seconds, from honest brands at honest prices. A moonphase or a simple chronograph in steel gives you most of the visual character without the legal exposure or a watch that dies in two years. That is the trade I would make every time.