The Shropshire company, which has 12 staff who bind everything by hand at its 470sqm workshop, returned to the market in search of another machine after its retained backup guillotine failed.

Happy with its existing Polar and supplier Heidelberg’s service, the business did not feel the need to look at any other options on the market and took delivery of the N78 Plus in May.

“We have to have two guillotines. Our first guillotine died last July so we replaced that with the secondhand Polar 92. The other machine, which had been our main guillotine, was moved into a backup situation but then that started to play up fairly seriously,” said managing director Paul Kidson.

“I’d just been so pleased with the 92 that we bought last August that I thought there was no point in looking anywhere else.

“The secondhand Polars retain their value astonishingly well and the price differential between new and secondhand was so close that we decided to buy new.”

As well as books, Ludlow Bookbinders also handles photograph albums and leather bound, clothbound and bespoke goods tailored to the requirements of its clients, which are generally small to medium-sized publishers.

Kidson added: “Business is proceeding along positively. There are very few of us left and we rely on bibliophiles needing these rarified books.”