Java Edition:Coal Ore (Item)
Coal ore is the most common ore in Minecraft, but it was not normally obtainable as an item until Beta 1.9 Prerelease 4, with the introduction of Silk Touch. However, there were methods to obtain coal ore as an item prior to this. Coal ore is considered a recontinued feature.
Obtaining
Mining
From Classic 0.0.14a to Classic 0.25_05 Survival Test coal ore could be obtained by mining the block, and did not require any silk touch. This was recontinued in Classic 0.27 Survival Test until Indev 20100125 because during Classic 0.26 Survival Test coal ore dropped stone slabs.
Classic
From Classic 0.28 to Classic 0.30c coal ore was available in the Classic inventory.
Indev Item Chests
From Indev 20100124-1 to Indev 20100125 new worlds would generate with the Indev House, and inside the house were debug chests. Between Indev 20100124 and Indev 20100125 the chests held items in stacks of 99, while in Indev 20100128 the chests held items in stacks of 100. Coal ore was one of the such items that generated inside the debug chests.
Beta 1.6 Test Build 3 Debug Chests
In Beta 1.6 Test Build 3 new worlds would generate with 11 debug chests. Within the debug chests were a wide variety of items most of which were available in there full stacks some were not. Coal ore was one of the such items that generated inside the debug chests, coal ore generated in the 1st and 4th chests from the left in the 16th and 27th slots respectively, in stacks of 64.
1st chest from the left.
4th chest from the left.
Silk Touch
With the introduction of Silk Touch in Beta 1.9 Prerelease 4 until 24w20a (present), when mining coal ore with a Silk Touch tool the block would drop itself instead of coal. This does not work in 12w32a (1.4.2 Snapshot) due to a bug, causing this method to be discontinued for that snapshot.