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[A] | ||
| Default | 25 | |
| Wooden | 3.75 | |
| Stone | 1.9 | |
| Iron | 1.25 | |
| Diamond | 0.95 | |
| Netherite | 0.85 | |
| Golden | 0.65 | |
- ↑ Times are for unenchanted tools as wielded by players with no status effects, measured in seconds. For more information, see Breaking § Speed.
Crafting
Blocks of coal can be crafted only from regular coal, not charcoal. It is crafted in the same way as other mineral blocks.
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
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
| Sound | Subtitles | Source | Description | Resource location | Translation key | Volume | Pitch | Attenuation distance |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Block broken | Blocks | Once the block has broken | block | subtitles | 1.0 | 0.8 | 16 | |
| Block placed | Blocks | When the block is placed | block | subtitles | 1.0 | 0.8 | 16 | |
| Block breaking | Blocks | While the block is in the process of being broken | block | subtitles | 0.25 | 0.5 | 16 | |
| None[sound 1] | Entity-Dependent | Falling on the block with fall damage | block | None[sound 1] | 0.5 | 0.75 | 16 | |
| Footsteps | Entity-Dependent | Walking on the block | block | subtitles | 0.15 | 1.0 | 16 |
| Sound | Source | Description | Resource location | Volume | Pitch |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Blocks | Once the block has broken | dig | 1.0 | 0.8-1.0 | |
| Blocks | When the block is placed | dig | 1.0 | 0.8-1.0 | |
| Blocks | While the block is in the process of being broken | hit | 0.37 | 0.5 | |
| Players | Falling on the block with fall damage | fall | 0.4 | 1.0 | |
| Players | Walking on the block | step | 0.3 | 1.0 | |
| Players | Jumping from the block | jump | 0.12 | 1.0 | |
| Players | Falling on the block without fall damage | land | 0.22 | 1.0 |
Data values
ID
| Name | Identifier | Form | Block tags | Translation key |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Block of Coal | coal_block | Block & Item | mineable/pickaxe | block.minecraft.coal_block |
| Name | Identifier | Numeric ID | Form | Item ID[i 1] | Translation key |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Block of Coal | coal_block | 173 | Block & Giveable Item[i 2] | Identical[i 3] | tile.coal_block.name |
Video
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,[1] 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:
| |||||||||||
| 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.
