Kingsland Road in Dalston is the location for the inaugural Josie Long's Charity Shop Rummage column, in which she will span the capital's charity shops in search of some gems. Over to you, Josie... ~fanfare~

Oxfam bookshops are wonderful; you can always find something good and they tend to be cheap too.

However, Oxfam is the Harvey Nicks of charity shops. They seem far too well organised, too well priced, too posh to be like a real charity shop experience. This isn’t to put them down at all, but as charity shops they don’t tend to be my favourites. It feels like the best stuff has been shipped to a centralised boutiquey store, or rooted out for sale to dealers, and the rest can be too similar to shopping in Next.

That little rant over, this Oxfam is pretty good. The staff are proper old school Hackney left and there are some good buys to be had: my companion bought a mandolin for £6. They had a great range of mid 90s hit indie cds too, as if a newly affronted wife had got rid of everything her husband had once held dear. I found a pretty rare EP by the Gravediggaz for 99p (yeah I just know loads about hip hop, I’m pretty cool and sophisticated, what of it? No big deal. Why even bring it up?). There was a copy of Out of Time by REM with “For Sarah <3 Louisa” written on it. What a heartless cow Sarah must be.

In general the homewares and books sections feel more like a real rummage, as the clothes are all nice quality but not exciting. For example I found fake tattoos and a ruby wedding anniversary vase, which I like to think came from the same donor.

The highlight was finding eight identical t-shirts saying “Pat Pong Bangkok Thailand" on them. I wanted to buy them all and create a kind of false memory gang with my friends so we could meet each other with the following exchange “Pat?” “Pong!”

Best buy: Bis – Transistor heroes for 99p.
Hipster steal potential: 5/5. It was even featured on “Young, Dumb and Living Off Mum as a place to buy second hand clothes, so the chances of hipsters stealing the cream of the stock here is as high as it gets.
Granny Treasure: 2/5.
Range: 2.5/5
Price: 3/5. Not bad prices for an Oxfam.
Reader's tip... Kate Webster emailed to say that Oxfam Dalston is a good place to find saris and traditional African dress. Thanks Kate!

And then just a short stroll down Kingsland Road...

About a minute-and-a-half down the road towards the hipster-paradise-cum-new-Blackpool of Shoreditch is St Vincent's, which is a genuine treasure of a local charity shop.

I spoke to the man behind the counter, who told me they were getting a lot of people to defect to their shop from Oxfam. It’s clear why, St Vincent’s is cheaper, genuinely ramshackle and with a much more exciting range, including a whole shop unit of furniture that is quite classic (stately old dressers and sofa sets) and very cheap.

For the first time in a while I managed to find cooler clothes too. There were lots of polyester 1970s dresses, the kind that many would pay upwards of £15 for, all for a pound. I was gutted they were all in a size 18 which is too big for me. I think the coolest chubby old lady in Dalston must have recently passed away or done lighter life. There are lots of polyester shirts too, in a range of sizes, and a sale rail that had brilliant school-style jumpers for a pound.

The books and games were really good too. Two sets of Atmosfear, which I can heartily recommend as a drinking game, are available if anyone still has a VHS, as well as rollerblades in several sizes. I found books on the DLR and the London Underground, which I like to think came from an obsessive young boy.

While I was in there, a posh hippy mum’s little boy did a wee on the floor and the man behind the till said “Oh, I’m sorry, I think there’s been an accident”, which I rated him for. So basically, don’t worry if you’re incontinent and want to go in, as the staff are pretty sensitive.

Best buy: A reel to reel tape recorder from the 1960’s, very elegant. May be broken.
Granny treasure: 3.5/5
Hipster steal potential: 2/5. Despite its location it feels like it’s not registering on the hipster radar.
Price: 4.5/5. When I went up with some books the man shrugged and went “oh.. 30p”. Classic. A good charity shop can’t have a known pricing system.
Range: 4.5/5. Check out their furniture!

Got any tips elsewhere, or best buys you have found in these shops? Email us at londonisthrifty@gmail.com

And click here for Josie's introductory piece to this column