Jean Michel Basquiat
The Lost Cards and my friend Norman Scherer

IN 1978, when a 21-year-old named Norman Scherer was working for the Unique Clothing Warehouse in the East Village, his responsibilities included dressing mannequins, organizing window displays and wandering the Village like a flashy, demented town crier.

Aside from being fired and rehired weekly, Mr. Scherer enjoyed the job. Every day, he and a co-worker had lunch in Washington Square Park, where they were usually joined by another employee, a young man whom Mr. Scherer knew only as Jean-Michel. And as they sat and talked, exchanging ideas, Norman bartered weed for the cards, the Jean Michel showed him.

Forgetting all about it, one day Mr. Scherer made a surprising discovery.
“I just wanted to look through my stuff and bring back some memories,”
he said.
It was a time when he was broke, and unable to afford rent on his office: a room he rented on the Lower East Side for the preservation of treasured
objects and things he refuses to throw out.

As Mr. Scherer sorted through its contents, he noticed, beside a pile of the strange clothes in which he used to parade through the Village, a manila folder tied with string. Inside, he found many postcards by Basquiat, all copies of the originals, all signed by the artist. The postcards are signed “Jean Basquiat,” not “Jean-Michel Basquiat,” conjuring a period when Basquiat, not yet even a New York figure let alone a global star, was still trying to get his name out. These were his first attempt at creative marketing, calling cards.

Since the excavation, Mr. Scherer has met with representatives of Sotheby’s to determine the value of the cards, I introduced Norman to Gracie Mansion, who took the cards on a tour of Asia. Norman has given me a few cards to sell….I sold a few in the beginning but stopped and held on to them, now I think we’re ready to sell for the right price. The provenance on them has grown.