Thistledowns

Thistledowns is a horse racing-themed pinball machine manufactured by Bally in the late 1930s. It was a one-ball, payout-style electro-mechanical machine, reflecting the wagering-oriented amusement machines common at Bally during this period.

Bally documentation shows model 277 'Thistledowns' with a release date of August 15, 1938, though there is also a later model 303 by the same name released in October 1938; the earliest known advertisement for the game, from October 1938, has made it difficult to fully separate the two releases.

As an early one-ball payout machine, Thistledowns predates the flipper (introduced in 1947) and features a simpler, chance-driven style of play typical of pre-war horse racing pinball games. Due to limited surviving documentation, many specifics of its design remain unclear, but it remains an interesting artifact of Bally's early payout-machine era.