Gold Star

The Gold Star pinball machine, produced by Ditta Ripepi s.p.a. of Messina, Italy in 1976, is a single-player copy of Gottlieb's earlier machine 'Fast Draw'. As one of the relatively few Italian-manufactured pinball machines from this era, it marks an interesting entry in the global expansion of the industry outside North America.

Because it is a copy of Fast Draw, its underlying gameplay and rule set follow that Gottlieb design rather than an original concept from Ripepi. Its 1976 release places it at a period when smaller European manufacturers frequently produced games closely based on established American designs.

Detailed documentation on the Gold Star itself is sparse, and specifics of its cabinet art and any modifications made from the original Fast Draw design are not well recorded. This makes it a machine of interest primarily to collectors and historians studying how American pinball designs were replicated by manufacturers in Europe during the 1970s.