Lets say someone deserves a stocking full of coal for Christmas. Where can I get coal? Charcoal briquettes aren’t quite right. I want real, mined-from-the-ground coal.
Where do you live?
A quick look in the great Boston Yellow Pages found three places under Coal - Retail. Take a look in your phone book, many folks still heat with coal. There will be some place that sells 100 lbs bags.
Una could probably hook you up. = )
I read somewhere that while coal was not fun, or colorful, and it utterly failed to taste great - it was a necessity. It was the purely utilitarian gift.
A modern equivalent would be underwear. (which may be easier to find)
That’s my problem, then. I’m in Florida, nobody heats anything down here. There are no coal retailers around here.
Any coal fired power plants down there? You can often find coal lying along the railroad tracks leading to such facilities.
Florida industrial plants used 574,000 short tons of coal in 2004. There have got to be a few lumps to spare.
Zyada says that joke-type gift stores (The ones that sell posters and cheap jewelery and so on) often have bags of coal this time of year. If so, they probably sell it by the stockingful instead of hundred-pound bags.
Wouldn’t a Spencer’s type place, or somewhere that sells gag gifts, have coal now? It’s probably way overpriced and come in some dopey packaging, but if you’re adamant about getting coal, maybe that’s an option?
rjk owes me a coke.
Get it? Coke?
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Not as much as you might think. This would keep two average size (500 Mw) units going for a year.
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Units of what?
Well thank you for sucking the whimsy and fun out of giving someone a filthy hunk of coal.
You could just get an irregular chunk of rock and paint it black; hold it above a candle flame afterwards (though not so close as to burn the paintwork) to make it sooty. If there’s any likelihood that the recipient will actually try to burn the faux coal, then it might not be such a good idea, as some kinds of rock can explode when heated.
This reminds me of a man who came up with a novel method of heating his house during the age of steam trains. He lived by a railroad track and he used to stack up some large tin cans on his fence. Passing drivers and firemen couldn’t resist the target and used the nearest source of handy thrown missiles. Our hero then went out in the evening and picked up a couple of buckets of grade A steam coal from his garden. 
I seem to recall that since about the 50’s, you can’t buy coal for home heating in the US.
On the other hand, you can find coal along the rail road tracks nearly anywhere, not just leading to power plants.
Definately not true, as we heated our house with coal through the 70’s and 80’s. There are three places close to me here in Boston that sell coal for residential heating today.
You could get coal candy. You can find it in lots of stores this time of year. Bonus is it turns your teeth black!
Googled “blacksmith coal florida”
Specifically:
Southeastern Coal, Pocahontas Number Three, Williston, Florida Call Al Pendray after 7:00 PM TEL: (904) 528-6124.