An Edinburgh record store received a helping hand from Taylor Swift this week after a box of signed CDs showed up at their shop.

• Read more: Taylor Swift – ‘Folklore’ review: pop superstar undergoes an extraordinary indie-folk makeover

Assai Records, which has shops in Dundee and Edinburgh, received 40 signed copies of the singer’s new album ‘Folklore’, which NME called “fresh, forward-thinking and, most of all, honest” in a four-star review.

Believed to be a show of support for independent record stores, Resident record shop in Brighton also received a delivery of the signed sleeves.

Assai owner Keith Ingram said he only was offered the sleeves by Swift’s record company on Wednesday (September 16), with the delivery arriving the following day.

“The last 24 hours have just been bonkers,” he told the BBC. “We’ve had Twitter messages from people all over the world saying they wish they were able to visit the shop and warm wishes about being able to get a signed CD.”

Not sure why his shop received the CDs, Ingram said: “We don’t know if we’re the first UK record shop because we begin with an ‘A’.”

The CDs were made available to personal callers only and could not be reserved online or over the phone.

“They went on sale yesterday about two o’clock and it just went crazy,” Ingram said, explaining that he split the signed CDs between his two shops.

Last month, Swift surprised a number of independent record stores in the US by shipping them signed CD copies of ‘Folklore’.

Released last month, ‘Folklore’ features collaborations with Bon Iver and The National‘s Aaron Dessner. It became the first album in four years to top the Billboard 200 for six weeks in a row.

Meanwhile, Kanye West has said he will “personally” help Taylor Swift get her master recordings back as he continued to discuss rights issues in the music industry on Twitter.

The rapper began the conversation around record deals and artists’ rights earlier this week (September 15) when he shared his own contracts with Sony and Universal.