Mark Rotenberg of New York earns his living like a lot of others -- buying and selling -- but his product of choice is smut.

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Rotenberg, who writes pornographic books and buys and sells erotica, got his start when his heirless neighbor died, and he started going through what city workers left behind in the man's apartment, including Cruikshank drawings, Civil War newspapers, Picasso lithographs and erotica, New York magazine reports.

Rotenberg is on the lookout for what he describes as the "holy grail" of pornography: blue movies done by mainstream stars like Marilyn Monroe and Joan Crawford, but it is unclear whether such works actually exist. He also would like to get his hands on the first Playboy featuring Monroe, said to be worth $7,000, and an original copy of "My Secret Life," a Victorian sex diary said to be worth $500,000.