Tutorials/Obtaining removed blocks and items

This page covers methods that can be used to obtain certain blocks and items in vanilla survival which have been completely removed from the game in a specific version onwards. Perhaps an exercise in futility for some, others may be interested in obtaining these purely for the thrill of having held a piece of Minecraft history in their hands at one point in a given world. They could even be kept forever if the player does not plan on updating the world, at the expense of all future features.

Certain features can be effectively preserved in some way by placing them in situations they would not normally be able to be encountered in, for example creating an oversized end portal, or pieces of completely still lava.

Air
Air was briefly available as an item in snapshot 13w38b for 1.7.2, while Grumm had been refactoring the code that represented air in-game. This availability lasted for one snapshot, as it was the focus of several bugs, most notably a bug that made all mobs that otherwise have no drops to now drop 0-2 air blocks. This air could be placed only when it would replace a block, such as tall grass or water.

Leaves with data values 4-15
Prior to 1.13, leaves uses the upper twelve data values to determine their eligibility to decay and whether they should check for decaying. Using glitches, all twelve of these could be obtained as items. They are often erroneously referred to as "alpha leaves", despite only being obtainable during release versions.

These could be obtained using a bug with the Silk Touch enchant. The data values 0-3 were obtained by shearing leaves. They could decay, but didn't check for decay. The data values 4-7 were obtained by placing regular leaves and breaking them with Silk Touch without updating them (see below). These leaves checked to be decayed, but would not actually decay (since player placed leaves are supposed to stay, not decay like trees). The data values 8-11 are the leaves that generated naturally on trees. The data values 12-15 were obtained by placing 8-11 leaves or by placing 0-3 leaves next to each other. These leaves could not decay and wouldn't check to be decayed. Placing the first 0-3 leaf made it turn into 4-7 and they could be updated by placing more 0-3 leaves next to them. When broken with Silk Touch, the first leaf in the line was 4-7 while subsequent ones become 12-15. Note that before 12w03a, jungle leaves did not exist so the data values 3,7,11 and 15 were effectively unobtainable.

Lit furnaces
Furnaces come in two block types: regular (unlit) furnace, and a burning furnace. When furnaces were first added in Indev 20100219, the regular furnace was obtainable through crafting or mining an unlit furnace while a burning furnace could be obtained by breaking a furnace in the process of smelting. Placing the burning furnace down would have it keep burning, and it would drop itself. This feature was removed in Alpha v1.0.1.

Lit redstone lamps
Lit redstone lamps would drop themselves from 12w07a to 1.2.4. Any powered lamp would drop the powered version when broken. When re-placed, the lit lamp would immediately turn back to the unpowered form. After 1.2.4, it could be possible to get lit redstone lamps only by using Silk Touch. Due to lit lamps being removed as an item in 13w37a, they were now unobtainable in any way.

Smooth stone double slabs
Mining any double slab block with silk touch in Beta 1.9 Prerelease 4 would yield a smooth stone double slab block. These as items were later removed from the game.

Glitch seeds
During the 1.8 snapshots, it was possible to obtain glitched wheat seeds with a missing texture.