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.

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.

Pans, easy. Start my own pan store.

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…

If I can sell the cast iron, I'd do that. That's like 50 millions bucks.

Give the money, my house is cluttered enough.