Short answer: 720.025 is not a Patek Philippe reference. Nothing in the brand's Grand Complications catalog carries a number in that format, and sellers who list it are describing a replica. What you are being offered is a super clone built on a decorated automatic or hand-wound base, then dressed with a perpetual calendar, moonphase or openworked dial so it reads like a six-figure watch from across a table. The case can hold up to a glance. The complications are where the money either shows or it doesn't.
What the number 720.025 tells you
Real grand complication references are short and specific: 5270, 5204, 6300, 5104. A three-digit dot three-digit string reads like a dealer SKU or a factory code, not a maker's reference. When a listing leans on a number nobody can match to a catalog, treat that as the first tell. The second tell is usually the price: a genuine perpetual calendar minute repeater sits in the high five to low seven figures, and no build at replica pricing is going to carry that movement.
What "grand complication" means on the real thing
The term gets used for watches that stack several high complications into one case: a perpetual calendar, a minute repeater, a split-seconds chronograph, sometimes a tourbillon. Each of those is its own mechanism with its own parts count, and a repeater alone involves racks, snails, hammers and gongs that are tuned by hand. That is the part no factory line replicates. A clone can copy the layout of the dial. It cannot copy a hundred hours of a watchmaker's bench time.
What a super clone can actually do
- Time and date: yes. Usually a modified 7750 or a custom automatic, and it keeps decent time.
- Moonphase: often a 24-hour disc or a slow wheel printed to look like a moon. Ask whether it tracks a 29.5 day cycle and watch the seller's face.
- Chronograph: real in some builds, decorative pushers in others. Start it, stop it, reset it, then check the subdial hands return to zero.
- Perpetual calendar: on most builds this is an annual or plain day/date module. Nothing self-corrects for February.
- Minute repeater: you will see hammers and gongs through the caseback on premium builds, but the strike train is not tuned to the actual hours, quarters and minutes. Treat it as a display piece.
- Tourbillon: real cages exist at this price. They rotate. They are not rated to chronometer standard.
Tells to check before you pay
- Caseback engraving. Look at depth and font. Laser etching sits shallow and gray. Real engraving cuts into the metal.
- Pusher and slide feel. A genuine repeater slide has resistance across the whole travel and snaps back hard.
- Subdial printing. Micro-text should stay legible under a loupe. Fuzzy brand text is the fastest no.
- Calendar behavior. Set it to February 28 and advance to March 1. If it needs a manual push, it is not perpetual.
- Movement finish. Geneva stripes should run unbroken under a bridge, not stop at its edge. Check the rotor for spelling errors in the engravings.
- Weight and thickness. Gold grand complications feel like paperweights. Most clones run one to two millimeters thicker than the watch they copy, and that shows under a cuff.
What to expect to pay, and who will service it
Prices for these builds cluster in the low hundreds to low thousands depending on whether the tourbillon is real, whether the chronograph functions, and how the case is finished. Above that range you are paying for a story. Below it, expect a standard 7750 and a dial with extra printing.
Servicing is the part buyers forget. Most local watchmakers will not touch a modified 7750 with a decorative calendar module bolted on top, and calendar discs are not catalog parts you can order. Before you commit, ask the seller who repairs it and what a service costs. A vague answer is an answer.
One practical note
A replica is legal to own in most places, but selling one as genuine is a different matter, and passing it off that way carries real legal exposure in the US. Keep the watch in the lane it belongs to. Buy it because you like the way it wears, not because you plan to convince anyone of anything.
Bottom line
720.025 is a listing number, not a reference. If you want a grand complication look with honest function, buy a super clone with a working chronograph and a real moonphase, skip the repeater slide unless you have handled the genuine article, and check the calendar advance and the pusher feel before money changes hands.