Dollars. Getting rid of the pans sounds like a nightmare as does all the people telling you you're seasoning them wrong/modern ones can be washed because our soap doesn't have lye in it/etc.
this post was submitted on 25 Nov 2025
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In my experience, all of those people can be safely ignored. My cast iron pan is my lowest maintenance kitchen thing. After cooking, I just wipe it out with a paper towel and we're good to go.
It's a lump of iron that you have to try to fuck up to make it irreparable. Whoever formed the church of perfect cast iron maintenance needs to take a chill pill
Fun thought experiment that I’m going to over analyze.
Near me iron seems to go for ~$180/ton at scrap yards. If we call the average pan weight 8lbs, that’s about 4k tons so scrap value on the lot is ~$720k. The question would be how likely you could sell these not as scrap and net beat the $280k spread. The scrap value per pan would be ~$0.72, so if you can sell each pan for more than a dollar you’d theoretically come out ahead, but to make it worth while you’d probably want to target $10 or more because processing, storing, and moving that many pans isn’t going to be free. Budget new pans go for $20-30, used can be lower or higher than that depending on quality and condition.
tl;dr: Depends on the condition and quality of the pans and it sounds like a lot of work but I’d say the optionality is skewed towards taking the pans if you were willing and able to put the time in to make it a business/job for yourself.
Personally I don’t have the time and I’m doing well financially, I’d take the money.
The IRS is going to take a big-ass chunk of your $1 million.
They're not going to get nearly as much from the pans.
Thank you, saved me the work. Although what I did read makes it sound like the scrap yard near you gives a good rate.
Pans, easy. Start my own pan store.
Going to call it Panorama right?
Or pan-o-rama
You're hired.
Give the money, my house is cluttered enough.
Even if the dollars are singles they would take up much less room and even better if it can be a higher denomination or just money in the bank. I have absolutely no where to store a million cast iron pans so they would cost money before they made any. I feel this is a too easy on honestly. I mean without some additional things like free storage and a business and such the pans make no sense.
Perhaps it’s my own lack of imagination, ability to organize, or personal challenges in seeing through a sustained effort; but, I just can’t imagine what I would do with that many dollars…
Just retire do as you are but without ever having to work again.
A house and a car? There goes most of it
If I can sell the cast iron, I'd do that. That's like 50 millions bucks.
Yeah, but it'll take forever to see that money.
Even if you could sell/ship 100 pans a day (which feels high to me), it'd take you over 27 years to get rid of them all.
Ur joking? Like 5 phone calls to random retailers. Sell at 3$ per piece. See how fast an 18-wheeler shows up to your front door.
Pretty tough selling a million of those. Gonna have to start an entire business
You have the inventory to back a loan, so you'll have liquidity to start the distribution and sell wholesale not retail, and undercut the competition. Once you set up your network the rest is just managing inventory.
if they are stored well and not allowed to degrade or are refurbished when they do. Until the loan is gotten you will need to pay for that storage. Then there is packaging and shipping. Your going to lose a lot before you gain anything.
Hence the business loan backed by inventory (a million units of anything is a lot of collateral.
Also, losses, if any, can be written off and a (tax) loss or insurance claim.
You'll also mitigate your tax exposure with the product rather than a million dollarydoos...which I would expect to be on the high end% since you won't be able to pay for a good CPA or lawyer to Bezo your money.
I mean a large amount of goods from no where and cash from no where is going to be equally problematic tax wise. But cash is more liquid and can be easily dealt with as long as you don't straight out deposit it.
Potato/potatoe