As a chipper who has been on PCF for almost 5 years, has bought, sold or traded over 20,000 chips, and has owned every significant type of chip from slugged plastic to ceramic, various Tina molded ceramics, high end plastics, vintage clay (Burt, ASM)
CPC clay and Paulson chips, I know what I would do if all of a sudden I lost all my chips, had to start over, and had a budget of $500-800. First, I'd watch the classifieds here for vintage clay that meets my needs for a cash set at about 2/3rds of my budget. A good cash set covering your stakes would be 200 x $1s, 300 (or more) x $5s, 100 x $25s and 40 (or more) x $100s. Roughly 640-700 chips. I'd spend more on the cash set, since it sounds like you're not all that serious about tournament play yet, and you can manage with a smaller set for a single table tournament.
For the tournament set, I would also watch the classifieds for someone who bought Tina ceramics and wants to move up. Used Tina ceramics will often sell for as low as 25-30 cents US, especially cards mold. I'd watch for one of the popular sets like Aria's, New China Club or one of the others that have been bought here in group buys in very large numbers.
Here are some good pics of the Aria's tournament chips. They are also available in T25 and T100,000
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Tina chips are very good chips for the money. No, they do not compare to real compressed clay chips. (vintage,
CPC or Paulson) But they were designed to look somewhat like real clay, with a mold on the surface, and with bright colors and printed on edge spots. Main complaint is that they are a bit slippery. But they look great, IMHO. For a single table, base T25 tournament set, you can probably comfortably play with a set of about 400 chips. With some time searching, or a wanted ad, you can probably find a set for around $150 before shipping.
This link is a showcase thread showing many other Tina cards mold chips going way back to when these first became popular in 2021.
https://www.pokerchipforum.com/threads/cards-mold-showcase.69344/
Now if you are not able to find a used clay cash set that's to your liking, and you don't want to increase your budget, I would go with the more recent Tina hybrid chips. Hybrids are ceramic chips similar in composition to cards mold, but with a recess and a printed label that's much higher quality than the printing directly on the ceramic cards mold chips.
Also, PCF members have commissioned Tina to produce several custom molds. Web mold and the newest Sun mold are available to anyone. Greek mold was commissioned by
@justincarothers and can only be ordered through him. Since you are located in Asia, you will probably want to order directly from Tina, so if you want Greek mold, you'll need to work that out with Justin. These hybrids are a big upgrade from the older cards mold, and to the non-chipper, they may look and feel very similar to real compressed clay chips, even though they are still injection molded plastic.
Justin also has a showcase thread, and the Greek mold hybrid pics start about here:
https://www.pokerchipforum.com/thre...ek-mold-web-mold-showcase.110561/post-2361274
Web mold pics start here:
https://www.pokerchipforum.com/thre...ek-mold-web-mold-showcase.110561/post-2412881
Star mold is brand new! I don't think any of them have been produced and shipped yet. Justin has some designs in his latest order thread of mock ups and an early production photo from Tina. (see below)
https://www.pokerchipforum.com/threads/chips-new-sun-mold-web-mold-greek-mold-01-2025.126802/
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Good luck with your search and I hope this has been helpful.
