I have a friend who replaced all his old sash windows a couple of years ago.  I was at his place the other day and noticed a pile of the weights next to a tree.  I'm guessing these are cast iron.  (????)  Are they of any use to a blacksmith?  Told him I'd ask to see if I could get rid of them for him.

All of the sash weights I have seen are cast iron. No good for forging. They can be useful for counter weights in the shop, like motorcycle chain hold downs for the anvil.

Cast iron, useful for counter weights or sell them for scrap. 

Frosty The Lucky.

drift weights' to slow your vessel down while fishing the river 

My wife uses one in her kayak.

I.F.I.  Citizens,   greetings,

Window sashes are useful , for hold downs, as  Mr. I. Dragon has mentioned and for many other uses.

And a close cousin are some of other types of counter weights used for small elevators.

I got a batch, years ago, whilst watching a repair crew fixing a lift. It cost nothing and I have used them over the years for

many solutions.

So a stop at such a repair outfit may pay off.

SLAG.

 

Window weights, you can throw them at a burglar, use singarly or tie a few together for workout equipment, deadfall booby trap again for intruders, throw at small to medium sized game, build a catapult and lay siege of your neighbors house, tie 2 together and go Bruce Lee with some iron nunchuku, hang from a hoop and make wind chimes.

just a coupe ideas off the top of my head. 

(just to be clear, that is my sad attempt at humor)

This thread, while originally serious, has ended up being very enlightening. Along that vein of thought, I guess I could use them as fly swatters.    Sounds as if the only decent thing to do with them is to take them to the scrap yard and trade'em for something I need.  Only problem with that is my scrap yard seldom has anything I need. 

All the ones I've taken out of my house (c1850) are 1.5" square wrought iron.  The vast majority are indeed cast thou.

Sash window weights are the preferred weights for trotline fisherman, at least this trotline fisherman anyways

they are good to use as a weight to hold down something your working on.

 

drive a spike in your anvil base, with a chain attached to the window weight, toss it over the piece your working on. Not the most ideal way, but it works.

One of the guys at my Thursday night group made that suggestion, too.

Have used them for crabbing frontlines here in Maryland and yes they were cast iron

Bell clappers.

Frosty The Lucky.

Tie them to the legs of your booth at the craft fair so that your booth will be the last to blow away when the thunderstorm rolls through.

"By hammer and hand all arts do stand."

Most are cast iron and very low grade cast iron at that.  They were often the "end of the day clean out the furnace/ladle" pours.  Scrapyard fodder!