With 17 of the machines made available globally, Heidelberg UK, itself has been responsible for the confirmed sale of three machines – one to South Africa, one to Ireland and one to England. It is now on track to sell a second unit in England this week (w/c 17 June).

A fixed-specification machine with pallet feeder, four plates and a pocket plate after the first knife unit, the anniversary model of the KH82 was produced to mark the machine’s popularity over the years.

It is available at a discounted rate of circa £160,000, which is around £22,000 cheaper than the standard model and is being sold by Heidelberg on the basis of a faster delivery turnaround of two weeks from receipt of order.

Finishing equipment product manager Ian Trengrouse said: “The Stahlfolder KH82 is a great machine anyway but the price differential means it is currently even better value for money.

“Our current offer has been a really good trigger mechanism for getting people over the line – those who might have been 50/50 are currently much easier to convince that now is the time to invest and this has been indicated in the market.

“The KH82 represented one of the first steps away from manual folders and gave us ultra-fast makereadies, cutting down to single digits in terms of minutes to prep. It has changed how we fold paper.”

Trengrouse said that the 70x100cm-format anniversary machine had also proven popular in territories such as Brazil and Mexico.

Heidelberg will be running a series of global webinars for English speakers next week to continue its anniversary celebrations, including two sessions on 26-27 June about the KH82-P Push to Stop technology and an overview of the KH82 anniversary machine.