How a Patek Philippe became a keeper of memory for watch collector Felicity Ng
A Patek Philippe inherited before her uncle's death sparked Felicity Ng's passion for watchmaking craft and the stories encoded in mechanical movements.
Five years ago, Felicity Ng's uncle placed a Patek Philippe 5196 into her hands as a wedding gift. He was gravely ill and uncertain he would attend the ceremony. Months later, he passed away.
Grieving, Ng did what felt like holding him close: she learned everything about the watch. What began as a way to process loss became an obsession with horology itself—not brand names or status symbols, but the engineering that makes a mechanical watch tick.
"I've always been more interested in what's inside than the brand's reputation," Ng says. "Understanding how a watch works, why this movement can function—that fascinated me."
She enrolled in watchmaking courses focused on assembly and disassembly. She watched close-up videos of balance wheels oscillating on YouTube, finding the motion almost therapeutic. Her collection grew deliberate: each piece chosen for its calibre, its finishing, its design logic.
When Ng discovered the Jaeger-LeCoultre Reverso—a watch whose case flips inside-out—it challenged everything she thought she knew about timepiece design. "I used to believe a watch had to be round and move in one direction," she recalls. "Reverso proved me wrong."
Her Art Deco Reverso from 1992, a particularly rare full-set example, took years to find. Ng is exacting about condition and provenance—an approach other collectors sometimes dismiss as impractical. She waited patiently rather than compromise. The Grande Taille case appealed to her; modern Reverso designs either run large and thick or cater to feminine preferences that didn't suit her taste.
What stopped her cold was the craftsmanship: two guilloché patterns on the dial; a transparent caseback revealing the calibre 822 AD movement with its perlage finishing; hand-engraving details Ng suspects Jaeger-LeCoultre no longer employs in current models. The "AD" abbreviation stands for Art Deco—a nod to watchmaking history embedded in the movement itself.
"These details became teaching tools," she says. When she struggles to understand a technique, the watch itself illuminates the answer.
Six years into collecting, Ng's grief has transformed into something sustaining. Her uncle's Patek Philippe remains her anchor—a bridge between loss and discovery. But it is the craft itself that now keeps her anchored, each movement a small mechanical poem she has learned to read.
