The Porn Hunter
`Rotenberg became a porn-hound back in Brooklyn Heights in the late seventies when his neighbor—an heirless man who had been hoarding prints, magazines, first editions, and pornography for decades—died. City workers hauled armloads of obviously valuable first editions out of the apartment, but they left everything else to be tossed into the trash. Already something of a pack rat, the then-26-year-old Rotenberg scavenged Cruikshank drawings, Civil War newspapers, signed Picasso lithos, and lots of erotic material. He wasn’t even into the porn at first. It was only after a friend suggested he show his finds to an editor at Screw that he realized there might be money in it.
Today, Rotenberg earns his living from pornographic books and sales on his Website, vintagenudephotos.com. Recently, a single buyer bought $1,400 worth of erotic playing cards, and Rotenberg was once offered $30,000 for a rare film by the early-twentieth-century California photographer Albert Arthur Allen.’
