Reviewed 2009-03-07 l Last update on 2023-08-24
Retro Porn Archive offers a large collection of porn video and photo materials from yesteryear! With materials spanning from pre-1910 to around 1960 or so, the site covers a wide range of eras and styles and includes softcore posing, strip teases, hardcore action and even fetish and bondage fun!
Retro Porn Archive offers a pretty large collection for this type of site with tens of thousands of photos and 264 videos. Unlike most vintage sites where photos come in sets, all of the photo materials at Retro Porn Archive are simply individual images, and there are around 18900 available here. The materials are divided into video and photo sections which break down into softcore and hardcore categories. The softcore photo section holds the bulk of the sites content with 17190 photos and the hardcore video section offers more flicks than the softcore section with nearly 190 downloadable video files. Although some of the materials are marked with recent date stamps, I've visited this site several times over the past three years or so, and it's never actually gotten any bigger.
My favorite aspect of Retro Porn Archive is the variety. You might think that things were pretty tame way back when, and in many cases you'd be right, but there's quite a bit of kinky fun here. I saw lesbian bondage, spanking, whipping, threesomes, groups, outdoor scenes, costume play and more. Many of the women here are white, but I also saw some black beauties and Asian temptresses, often dressed in ethnic clothing. There are models dressed as classical goddesses, burlesque shows, hardcore fucking and more, but frequently the videos don't seem to be complete and cut off in the middle of the action.
Considering the nature of the materials here at Retro Porn Archive, it's pretty obvious that the materials aren't exclusive and that the quality can vary quite a bit. Almost all of the materials are black and white, and while many of the videos and photos are surprisingly clear, some are quite blurry, grainy and/or dark. Videos are DRM-free.
The tour pages at Retro Porn Archive preview quite a few photos, but there are no sample videos, and some of the specific info given is flat out false. The claim of 40000 photos and 345 videos is obviously untrue, as is the promise of regular updates.
The members' area here is extremely basic and simple and needs some improvements to be user friendly. The first page you see upon logging in is essentially one big ad with a few previews and samples from other websites trying to get your money, and the links for the materials are included above the ads. You can choose from four sections of the site, hardcore videos, softcore videos, hardcore photos and softcore photos. There are no search or sort tools or any way to look up fetish or bondage scenes, certain types of models, or anything else for that matter.
Videos are listed 10 to a page, photos 30 to a page, and members are given no choice in how to view or download them. You can easily use your browser to grab the individual images, and the thumbnails for the flicks link directly to the file. Videos are typically in AVI format at around 312x240 pixels, 1200 kbps, but these numbers really don't have much correlation to the actual quality of the video.
Although it doesn't live up to its own claims of size or updates, the Retro Porn Archive collection is quite large and has a lot to offer vintage porn lovers even if the materials aren't well organized. The price seems rather high for a site that isn't updating and doesn't have to shoulder the cost of paying for new scenes to be shot, but you may want to give this one a shot based on the size alone.
