For Christmas, my parents got me a new new black 30 gig video Ipod. I’m not going to get into an Ipod review, because just about everyone in the world knows what and Ipod is. But, the reason I got a new Ipod for Christmas is because my old one was broken. I had a 3rd generation 20 gig Ipod from around 2003 or so. It’s been broken for a year at least and just been sitting around, until a few days ago I didn’t know there was a market for broken Ipods.

When Apple made the original Ipods, they did not intend them to be lifelong products. Ipods were built only to last 2, maybe 3 years. After that, users are supposed to toss the old ones and upgrade to the new ones with better features. Did Apple really expect us to ‘throw’ them away? Well, apparently, broken Ipods are quite popular on Ebay. Type in “broken ipods” into the search and you will find a couple hundred results all of which have 5-10 bids on them.

I put my broken Ipod on Ebay a few days ago. You can view the auction here. With 5 hours left, I have7 bids, 15 watchers, and a top bid of $31 with $10 for shipping. Not bad for a broken Ipod. I figure there must be companies or individuals who buy up these Ipods for parts. They replace the batteries and fix the LCD screen and then resell the Ipods for maybe $75-100 depending on the make and model. It’s not a bad business to get into if you know how to repair them. Ipods will be breaking for years from now.

So if you have a broken Ipod, don’t let it sit in a drawer… put it on ebay and make a quick $30-40. You can buy a couple domain names with that! Or if you want to make some cash and live on a college campus… put some flyers up saying you will buy broken Ipods for $10-15. See if you collect 10 or 20 ipods, then turn around and sell them on ebay for 200-300% profit.