Sales director Dean Beckett said the latest deal was made with suppliers in Iran. The €600,000 (£475,000) sale included 13 B1 print units, in the form of a Heidelberg Speedmaster SM 102 8P and SM 102 5P, as well as Stahl and Schoei folders and a pile-turner.

The sale comes after a series of smaller deals, which included a Maltese printer buying an SM 52 two-colour press for €55,000 and sales of a Creo CTP and GTO machine.

"We don't expect to sell machines at Drupa," said Beckett. "It's more of a flag-waving, data capture, marketing event for us."

The company sells on average 70 to 100 presses each year and Beckett said that despite exhibitors showing off the latest innovations at the show, there are many smaller printers that would benefit from used equipment dating from the mid 1990s.

"1995-1996 was the key turning point in automation," he said. "For some small printers, we can take out an old GTO and sell them a 10-year-old machine and still revolutionise their business."