Hey George, welcome to the forum! Whereabouts in London are you, as I have family in Dulwich?
What's your ballpark figure, budget wise for a set? And what blinds do you play for that £100 buy-in?
As Sean eluded to in his post, I quite regularly have chips imported from the USA, and have had no issues. Yes, shipping costs are more expensive and yes, you have to pay import duties more often than not (especially on larger packages); but I generally only have to buy from the USA / Canada because I love Paulsons and custom labels from
@Gear.
So, to answer your question of "is it worth paying the extra for a Paulson set", I would ultimately say yes. If you think there's a chance that you're going to really enjoy this hobby and end up taking it seriously, then there's a 95% chance you're going to invest in a set of Paulsons eventually anyway. I base this opinion solely on my own experience, which is that I wish I'd saved myself the £400 I'd spent on the two previous sets of chips (which were fine) I had before my first Paulsons... and just gone straight for the latter.
If you don't have your heart set on Paulsons, then check out
these, as they are supposed to be very good chips and come from a website in Europe, meaning you won't have to pay any import duties. They are a really good company to deal with and, likewise,
these are what I had before my first Paulsons.
Best,
Jack.