Block of Coal

This article is about the mineral block. For the ore, see Coal Ore. For the item, see Coal.

Block of Coal
Renewable	Yes
Stackable	Yes (64)
Tool
Blast resistance	6
Hardness	5
Luminous	No
Transparent	No
Flammable	Yes (5)
Catches fire from lava	No

A block of coal is a storage block, equivalent to nine coal, that can also be used as fuel.

Obtaining

Blocks of coal can be mined using any pickaxe. If mined without a pickaxe, it drops nothing.

Block	Block of Coal
Hardness	5
Tool
Breaking time
Default	25
Wooden	3.75
Stone	1.9
Iron	1.25
Diamond	0.95
Netherite	0.85
Golden	0.65

Crafting

Blocks of coal can be crafted only from regular coal, not charcoal. It is crafted in the same way as other mineral blocks.

Ingredients	Crafting recipe
Coal

Usage

Blocks of coal are often used to store coal in a compact fashion, or otherwise used as a fairly cheap construction block.

Crafting ingredient

Name	Ingredients	Crafting recipe
Coal	Block of Coal	9

Fuel

Blocks of coal can be used as fuel in a furnace. One block of coal lasts 800 seconds (16000 ticks), which smelts 80 items. This is ten times the duration of a single piece of coal and 1¹⁄₉ times as efficient (+11.11%) as nine individual pieces of coal—which would only smelt 72 items. The latter, however, prevents inactive furnace use; while smelting one item with one coal wastes seven potential items, smelting one item with one block of coal wastes 79 potential items.

Note Blocks

Block of coal can be placed under note blocks to produce "bass drum" sounds.

Sounds

Java Edition:

Sound	Subtitles	Source	Description	Resource location	Translation key	Volume	Pitch	Attenuation distance
	Block broken	Blocks	Once the block has broken	block.stone.break	subtitles.block.generic.break	1.0	0.8	16
	Block placed	Blocks	When the block is placed	block.stone.place	subtitles.block.generic.place	1.0	0.8	16
	Block breaking	Blocks	While the block is in the process of being broken	block.stone.hit	subtitles.block.generic.hit	0.25	0.5	16
	None	Entity-Dependent	Falling on the block with fall damage	block.stone.fall	None	0.5	0.75	16
	Footsteps	Entity-Dependent	Walking on the block	block.stone.step	subtitles.block.generic.footsteps	0.15	1.0	16

Bedrock Edition:

Sound	Source	Description	Resource location	Volume	Pitch
	Blocks	Once the block has broken	dig.stone	1.0	0.8-1.0
	Blocks	When the block is placed	dig.stone	1.0	0.8-1.0
	Blocks	While the block is in the process of being broken	hit.stone	0.37	0.5
	Players	Falling on the block with fall damage	fall.stone	0.4	1.0
	Players	Walking on the block	step.stone	0.3	1.0
	Players	Jumping from the block	jump.stone	0.12	1.0
	Players	Falling on the block without fall damage	land.stone	0.22	1.0

Data values

ID

Java Edition:

Name	Identifier	Form	Block tags	Translation key
Block of Coal	coal_block	Block & Item	mineable/pickaxe	block.minecraft.coal_block

Bedrock Edition:

Name	Identifier	Numeric ID	Form	Item ID	Translation key
Block of Coal	coal_block	173	Block & Giveable Item	Identical	tile.coal_block.name

History

Java Edition
2.0					Added blocks of coal to the April Fool's 'update', Minecraft 2.0, using a recolored version of the Block of Redstone texture. It could not be used as fuel and was only a compact block. When crafted back to coal, it would have an item data value of 32767 instead of 0, so it could not be stacked with other coal.
April 5, 2013					Coal blocks mentioned by Dinnerbone, after their featuring in Minecraft 2.0. These would apparently be difficult to implement due to an analogous block made of charcoal requiring a separate block ID due to "logical issues".
1.6.1		13w18a			Added blocks of coal.
					Blocks of coal utilize the same texture as from the April Fools' Day update.
					The smelting time for block of coal is 720 seconds.
		13w18c			The smelting time for a block of coal has been changed to 800 seconds.
		13w19a			The texture of blocks of coal has been changed.
					Blocks of coal are now flammable.
1.8		14w11b			Blocks of coal with numerical metadata variants 1 through 15, which are inaccessible through normal gameplay, now have no model rather than appearing identical to blocks of coal.
		14w26a			Block metadata has been completely removed from this snapshot onwards with the introduction of block states. As this block never used block metadata at all prior to this version, fifteen unused, inaccessible metadata variants of it have been completely removed from the game: DV Description 0 Block of Coal 1-15 Inaccessible "boring" variants of blocks of coal
1.13		17w47a			Prior to The Flattening, this block's numeral ID was 173.
1.14		18w43a			The texture of blocks of coal has been changed.
Pocket Edition Alpha
v0.8.0		build 1			Added blocks of coal.
Bedrock Edition
1.10.0		beta 1.10.0.3			The texture of blocks of coal has been changed.
Legacy Console Edition
TU19	CU7	1.12	Patch 1	1.0.1	Added blocks of coal.
PlayStation 4 Edition
1.90					The texture of blocks of coal has been changed.
New Nintendo 3DS Edition
0.1.0					Added blocks of coal.

Issues

Issues relating to "Block of Coal" are maintained on the bug tracker. Report issues there.

Trivia

• Blocks of coal cannot be used as fuel for the minecart with furnace.
• A full stack of coal blocks should smelt for 14.2 hours – over 42 Minecraft days. That is over fifty times as many items as a lava bucket. However, the player needs 576 coal or 9 stacks of coal to do this.

Gallery

• 

  The 13w18a Banner, Showing a block of coal, furnace, hopper, and multiple hay bales.