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This weekend, a reporter for the Charlotte Observer came across one hell of a find at the Camp North End Vintage Market in Charlotte:

Gordon Rago @gragonews

Found this 1940s @theobserver wrestling robe at the Camp North End vintage market. WHAT??? Who can answer for this?!

That robe is a little more Classy Freddie Blassie than Ric Flair, but’s it’s fantastic nonetheless. The reporter passed along one more clue: There was an AAU patch on the front. Past that, the seller didn’t really have any more information.

This all went down on Saturday, and I immediately had a lot of people tagging me, asking to figure it out. But, honestly, I only found one piece of the puzzle. The internet, lovingly, sprang into action and filled in the rest of the gaps.

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No Wrasslin’, Just Fistfightin’

I had a hunch that this thing wasn’t a wrestling robe, but actually a boxing robe, since the AAU stands for Amateur Athletic Union, an organization that’s been around since 1888. On Twitter, Brad Kutrow chimed in to say that the Observer used to sponsor an amateur boxing tournament: the Golden Gloves.

Brad Kutrow @brklwyr

@gragonews @theobserver A clue from Jack Claiborne’s Observer history @historysouth @CltLedger @deftlyinane

Gordon Rago, the reporter who found the robe, provided the timeline: The 1940s. And a quick newspapers.com search for “Golden Gloves,” “robe,” and “Charlotte Observer” led me to an article from January 19, 1940. In it, the Observer laid out a number of prizes for the amateur boxers who came out victorious.

The winners of the local Golden Gloves went on to a national tournament sponsored by the New York Daily News, and the paper wanted to make sure people knew who’d sponsored the boxers from the Carolinas. Hence, in 1940, a winner got not only a robe, but also a belt buckle and some boxing shorts. The Observer called it the “finest array of prizes ever offered in an amateur boxing tournament in this part of the country,” which is a lot of qualifiers, but still! A blue and gold satin robe and shorts, along with a big ol’ belt buckle is a FIT.

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Anyhow, that’s where I (and a man from Duluth) ended up. But the folks at UNC Charlotte’s Special Collections went the extra mile.

UNC Charlotte Special Collections @CLTSpecColl

While the image quality leaves much to be desired, both @theobserver and the Charlotte News archives have photo of boxers wearing the robes. Thanks to @deftlyinane, we know the robes were first given out in 1940, and here's the first batch of winners in the Feb. 21, 1940 edition.

Gordon Rago @gragonews

Found this 1940s @theobserver wrestling robe at the Camp North End vintage market. WHAT??? Who can answer for this?! https://t.co/tvQPXfjZUm

UNC Charlotte Special Collections @CLTSpecColl

This photograph from the November 17, 1942 Observer actually shows the back of the robe! However, the poor image quality makes it hard to tell if there are some sort of design underneath "The Charlotte Observer" or just some sort of reflection from the satin.

So, we now know what the robe is, but we don’t know who wore this particular robe. That investigation may now fall upon the robe’s new owner, which was not actually the Observer reporter who found it, but rather an editor at Axios Charlotte who went back later and bought it.

Emma Way @emmakway

I bought it. 🤪

Jeremy Markovich @deftlyinane

Figured this out. @theobserver used to sponsor a Golden Gloves amateur boxing tournament every year and one of the prizes was this robe (along with shorts and a belt). Here’s a story from the paper on January 19, 1940: https://t.co/ds4SHEM1Hp https://t.co/ICzfip3q1d

To be the news outlet, you gotta beat the news outlet.

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The Newspaper With A Satin Robe