Why would broken wands have any value?

Question

From Chamber of Secrets:

In Gambol and Japes Wizarding Joke Shop, they met Fred, George, and Lee Jordan, who were stocking up on Dr. Filibuster’s Fabulous Wet-Start, No-Heat Fireworks, and in a tiny junk shop full of broken wands, lopsided brass scales, and old cloaks covered in potion stains they found Percy, deeply immersed in a small and deeply boring book called Prefects Who Gained Power

Why would a shop, even a junk shop, sell broken wands? It's not like they have any value. Nearly every instance in the book a broken wand is used, it fails or backfires spectacularly. So what value is there to broken wands?

Answer 1

Broken wands can be used to perform magic

Hagrid's wand was snapped by the Ministry of Magic. Yet, that didn't stop him from giving Dudley a pig's tail.

Hagrid seized his umbrella and whirled it over his head, “NEVER —” he thundered, “— INSULT — ALBUS — DUMBLEDORE — IN — FRONT — OF — ME!” He brought the umbrella swishing down through the air to point at Dudley — there was a flash of violet light, a sound like a firecracker, a sharp squeal, and the next second, Dudley was dancing on the spot with his hands clasped over his fat bottom, howling in pain. When he turned his back on them, Harry saw a curly pig’s tail poking through a hole in his trousers.

_{-Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone}

Hagrid hid the broken pieces in his umbrella, was able to perform magic perfectly well.

“Good wand, that one. But I suppose they snapped it in half when you got expelled?” said Mr. Ollivander, suddenly stern. “Er — yes, they did, yes,” said Hagrid, shuffling his feet. “I’ve still got the pieces, though,” he added brightly. “But you don’t use them?” said Mr. Ollivander sharply. “Oh, no, sir,” said Hagrid quickly. Harry noticed he gripped his pink umbrella very tightly as he spoke.

'But You Don't Use Them' clearly proves that broken wands can be used.

Answer 2

Broken wands can be upcycled into art or building material.

Broken wands can be used for kindling.

Broken wands can serve as decorative Tchotchkes.

Relatedly, broken wands may carry historical significance of:

• a period (e.g., the old-timey glass telephone wire insulators)
• a wand maker (e.g., the historical significance of a Stradivarius, even a broken one)
• an owner (e.g., "That's Hardswobble Hechidee's second wand on the mantel there! The one he broke helping clear the Great Swarguswump Infestation of 1916").

Answer 3

For parts. The wand cores are often made of valuable materials.

These materials may be able to be salvaged. Even if they are damaged they could be used in potions.

If the used wands are cheap they could be a cheaper source of potion ingredients for those willing to spend the time extracting them.

Answer 4

I'll admit this is not referenced in canon works upfront (that I know about).

Wands have 2 parts, the wood and the core. Any hollow, slender bit of wood could be broken with whatever is in the center remaining intact

This could be of use in a number of ways. A wizard or witch might study wandlore and broken wands would be a good material to start investigating how the core of the wand works.

You can reverse engineer even from broken things. The snapped wood of a wand might tell a fledgling wand maker a great deal about how to craft a wand.

Finally, If you have an intact core, you could craft an entirely new wand around it. This could be something an experienced wand maker might have an apprentice do, since new wand cores would be a rare and valuable material. That way, the apprentice can learn without wasting the good stuff.

Answer 5

It is possible that the cores of the broken wands may be useful.

Before Garrick Ollivander came onto the scene, people used many different types of wand cores:

Prior to Mr Ollivander’s proprietorship of the family business, wizards used a wide variety of wand cores. A customer would often present the wandmaker with a magical substance to which they were attached, or had inherited, or by which their family swore (hinted at by the core of Fleur Delacour’s wand). Mr Ollivander, however, was a purist who insisted that the best wands would never be produced merely by encasing the whiskers of a favourite Kneazle (or the stalk of a Dittany plant that once saved a wizard’s father from poisoning, or the mane of a kelpie a witch had once met on holiday in Scotland) in the customer’s favourite wood.

_{Mr. Ollivander by J.K. Rowling on Pottermore}

So even though Mr. Ollivander is the finest wandmaker in the world, there may be some wizards that want to use a different maker, and depending on how old the wands in the junk shop are, they could contain different cores that weren't readily available for purchase in modern times.

Even if the broken wand is one of the "three cores" (phoenix feather, dragon heartstrings, unicorn hair) it seems that is possible to replace your core (although it seems this is only a problem with unicorn hair):

Minor disadvantages of unicorn hair are that they do not make the most powerful wands (although the wand wood may compensate) and that they are prone to melancholy if seriously mishandled, meaning that the hair may ‘die’ and need replacing.

_{Wand Cores by J.K. Rowling on Pottermore}

Although I am not sure why you would go to anyone but Mr. Ollivander in the first place because you are not going to the best wand possible:

While there was initially substantial resistance to this revolutionary way of crafting wands, it swiftly became clear that Ollivander wands were infinitely superior to anything that had come before. His methods of locating wand woods and core substances, marrying them together and matching them to ideal owners are all jealously guarded secrets that were coveted by rival wandmakers.

_ibid

Answer 6

Some broken wands are repairable, and then can be used ‘whole’.

When Harry shows Ollivander his broken wand, Ollivander tells him that with the degree of damage his wand has, none of the ways he knows could fix it. He doesn’t say broken wands can never be fixed - if he knew that it was impossible, he’d say that rather than ‘it’s too damaged for me to fix’.

“Ollivander held out a trembling hand and Harry placed the two barely connected halves into his palm. ‘Holly and phoenix feather,’ said Ollivander in a tremulous voice. ‘Eleven inches. Nice and supple.’

‘Yes,’ said Harry. ‘Can you –?’

‘No,’ whispered Ollivander. ‘I am sorry, very sorry, but a wand that has suffered this degree of damage cannot be repaired by any means that I know of.”
_{^{- Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, Chapter 24 (The Wandmaker)}}

This indicates that, although they wouldn’t work on Harry’s wand or any wand with a comparable amount of damage, that Ollivander does know of ways to fix broken wands. This also means that there are cases where the wand isn’t quite as badly broken, and can be successfully repaired. Therefore, broken wands can sometimes be fixed into usable ones, and can have value due to that. The other things we know are in the junk shop, lopsided brass scales and old cloaks covered in potion stains, also fit the description of things that are worn-down but may be salvageable.

The junk shop seems to be a way for wizards to get used items presumably for much cheaper than buying it new and in good condition. Most wizards prefer getting new wands and would typically buy other items secondhand if they needed to save money, but pay full price for a new wand that’s chosen them. However, if they still couldn’t manage to afford a new wand, buying a broken wand and attempting to fix it (particularly because of the limited demand for secondhand wands) would likely be a lot cheaper than the seven Galleons needed to buy a new wand from Ollivander.

“Most witches and wizards prefer a wand that has “chosen” them to any kind of secondhand wand, precisely because the latter is likely to have learned habits from its previous owner that might not be compatible with the new user’s style of magic.”
_{^{- The Tales of Beedle the Bard}}

So, it’s possible they sell broken wands for wizards who can’t afford new wands to mend and use.

Answer 7

You have to remember that these broken wands are being sold by a joke shop. So the real question is: Exactly what kinds of jokes can one pull with a broken wand? Some suggestions:

(a) In the same spirit as Puking Pustules and Nosebleed Nougat: Getting out of class. "I'm so sorry, Professor Flitwick, I can't do any magic - see, my wand is broken!" [note: this won't work more than a few times before the teachers catch on]

(b) If you can match another student's wand, you can pull a fast one on him/her - you 'accidentally' run into him/her, stuff clatters to the floor, you reach down and say "Oh, geez, I broke your wand!" [student's face goes white] Show the actual wand: "Haha, fooled you!".

(b') Same as (b) in reverse, by matching your own wand. "You IDIOT! YOU BROKE MY WAND!"