Direct item forms of blocks

Java Edition
The game prevents certain blocks from being obtained through normal gameplay methods, such as crafting, the creative inventory, the pick block key, and the Silk Touch enchantment. It also prevents such blocks from being given through less conventional methods, such as inventory editing, mods, and commands. Until 1.7.2 and 1.8, there had been a wide variety of blocks that could be edited into the inventory; over time, however, the game was updated so that these blocks became entirely unavailable, even though one utilized inventory editing. From Java Edition 1.13 onwards, blocks and items are completely different concepts, and numerical IDs no longer exist at all.

Currently, the game accepts only namespaced IDs (such as ) in most commands, and uses only these namespaced IDs when assigning blocks to the inventory and save files. The old method of obtaining a block via numerical IDs is no longer an option. In addition, the game automatically removes blocks with illegitimate namespaced IDs from the inventory, so using inventory editors is also no longer an option. Furthermore, certain blocks with both block and item forms, such as, cannot be obtained in their block form in the inventory; however, since the game has a corresponding item named  , the item form is given instead.

Despite never being intended to be obtainable, some of these could even be acquired in survival using unusual means - see Tutorials/Obtaining discontinued blocks and items for more info.

All such blocks
All of the following block items were removed at one point, as clarified in the following paragraphs.

In snapshot 13w37a for 1.7.2, the command was modified so that it would display the name of the item in chat. Due to this, 26 blocks were made unavailable.

In snapshot 14w25a for 1.8, changes were made to the way the icons of items were rendered, and the way block data was internally represented. Due to this, 12 blocks were made unavailable.

History of inventory appearances
As these were never intended to be implemented, it is possible to observe drastic and unexpected texture changes on these blocks due to minor code changes elsewhere from version to version.