BERLIN Automatic copper-beige silver / Heritage 20 dark brown

Copper-beige is a difficult dial color. Push it warm and it turns orange; pull it back and it goes gray. The Sternglas BERLIN Automatik lands it in between, on a soft metallic blush that reads almost neutral in daylight and warms up under a lamp.

The BERLIN line looks inland rather than out to sea. It marks the 1846 rail link between Hamburg and Berlin, and the screwed caseback is engraved with Hamburg's Berliner Bahnhof, the terminus that served the city from 1857 to 1903. Sternglas, founded in Hamburg in 2016, draws the dial in its usual reduced, Bauhaus-inspired manner: sans-serif type, baton markers, nothing decorative.

This configuration sets the copper-beige dial in a silver-tone 316L stainless steel case measuring 38 mm across, running a self-winding automatic movement with a date display. The double-domed sapphire crystal carries anti-reflective coating on both faces, and the watch is rated to 5 bar. The 20 mm Heritage strap is dark brown cowhide with an alligator emboss, 4 mm thick, and swaps out without tools.

Warm dial, cool case, brown leather. It is a combination that behaves itself with navy, gray and tan alike.

Perfect for: 38 mm automatic dress watches, warm-toned dial watches, Bauhaus-inspired German watch design.