Trade Winds

Trade Winds, designed by Steve Kordek and manufactured by Williams, was released in June 1962, with 1,250 units confirmed produced. It carries a nautical/sailing theme typical of Williams' output from the period.

Trade Winds features two flippers, five pop bumpers, two passive bumpers, two slingshots, a single kick-out hole, and left and right triple outlanes, giving it a layout with plenty of scoring opportunities and risk of ball drainage alike. The production run notably includes two different backbox styles: early games reportedly had a square backbox with three painted parallel lines and a darker blue playfield, while later production games shipped with a reverse wedge head backbox. The game's schematic diagram carries a notice that it operates on 24 volts.

Trade Winds is a solid example of Steve Kordek's early-1960s EM design work for Williams, and the backbox and playfield color variations across its production run make it a machine of particular interest to collectors researching Williams' manufacturing changes of the period.