iPod Classic selling online secondhand for up to $1,000

We may receive a commission on purchases made from links.

This was the year that Apple finally discontinued the iPod Classic, its traditional mp3 player that featured the iconic click-wheel we were all familiar with before touchscreens. It looks like some people are desperate enough to get one to spend over double the $249 selling price they were available at before September. Did these people forget that the Classic was available for four years in its last form, having not been updated since late 2010?

A new report from the The Guardian reveals that prices for the seventh, and final, generation of the 160GB iPod Classic have skyrocketed online at sites like eBay and Amazon over the last two months. In the most extreme case, the newspaper found brand-new models selling for as high as £670 (just over $1,000). That was on Amazon's re-seller marketplace, where prices for new Classics are typically found between $550 and $780.

Price aren't quite as shocking in the U.S., where new Classics can be found on Amazon for around $500, but sales on eBay are still absurd, with prices ranging from $750 for new to nearly $500 for used. And these aren't just a handful of random sales either, as over 3,000 seventh generation iPods have been listed on eBay between October and now. It may even be possible that someone really did pay $90,000 for a U2 Special Edition fourth generation iPod (with a mere 20GB of storage), but chances are high that's bogus.

Apple CEO Tim Cook stated that the reason for the iPod Classic's retirement was because the company simply couldn't get the components anymore. There's little reason for the sudden demand of the Classic, other than scarcity. The traditional model has few advantages over the touchscreen iPods and iPhones of today, except for maybe simple storage space. A 160GB Classic has more than double the space of the 64GB iPod Touch, the largest model available now. Then again, you can buy a 128GB iPhone 6 for around $850, depending on the country. But it still won't have that classic click-wheel design.

SOURCE The Guardian