Collecting on Ebay has become very hard in my opinion i will try to give you the best advice possible as a SNES collector. I can tell you the market has become very competitive so finding a deal is become more harder by the day. One of the biggest mistakes made by new collectors is buying common games at or slightly below market value. these games you will see all over and will have hundreds of chances to buy throughout the year. The trick is to find the top 100-200 rarest games on your preferred system and search DAILY for these games. After a few months you will see games that only appear once or twice a year !! this is when you make a market value at or above offer. Some rare games will be available 5-6 at a time in which you want to wait for the best deal ALWAYS consider label condition learn how to spot fakes and do your research.
I have a collection of over 500 SNES titles i waited very late to get common titles like Mario, DK, Mortal Kombat, Castlevania, Metroid, Conta ect. all boxed in pristine condition for pennies on the dollar. Sure i could of bought these games first but i would have missed out on the games that has SKYROCKETED in value.
With some rare titles on the SNES the boxes have become more valuable then the games itself so keep an eye on box pricing as well! best of luck be extremely patient and let me know if you ever need a listing on hot games to buy or further advice.

Thank you for the great advice sir. I have bought a common game or two just for the sake of gathering a few up. I bought kirbys avalanche for $53 sealed in fairly good box shape just because I liked the design and thought it would be another good starter at an ok price. I do see what you mean that's actually a backwards strategy from what I had planned just from a financial standpoint of not throwing 100+ dollars at games for now. Lol. I was hoping to get lucky at goodwill pawn shops etc and find some dares for $5

If you make a significant purchase make it one of value i bought Casper for SNES CIB for 100-110$ in 2015-2016. At the time it was expensive for a game that's not very fun
Now looking online people are asking 300-360$ CIB and there's only 2 available. I can list 40-50 of similar situations that took months to find where as commons that I've bought have either stayed the same in pricing or have went down. Another tip is to buy multiple of the same rare games if the opportunity comes. Not only will they increase in value naturally but you can hold to trade later for more sought after games.

So you're saying shy away from higher common games and seek out the rarer games in the same price range. Such as pass of secret of mana possibly but maybe pull the trigger on something harder to come by in that same 100-130 price range?

https://www.gamefaqs.com/snes/916...

This list could be updated but is VERY reliable in terms of rarity rankings for the SNES there's some games that arnt as rare as described and others that are understated. My advice is to start on the 5-50$ games (yes there's still some that cheap out there) with A-B rarity rankings! Buy doubles of these rare games as these will no doubt increase in value. If you find a great deal on Ardy Light Foot, Incantation, Casper, Oscar, Pieces, Mr.Nutz, S.O.S Sink or swim, Shiens Revenge then by all means go for it although wont find these games very often for under 150$
Id avoid Zelda Mario Zombies,FF, TMNT, Secret of Mana, Bomberman and a whole host of other fairly expensive games that are around ever corner of the Ebay and at some point you ll find them in a lot at a thrift store or win an auction no one cares about. TBH i don't even own some of these titles but if i wanted i could buy them at any moment!
If i were to collect N64 NES PS1 id use a similar approach

Fantastic link!! Thank you x1000

Also, what determines if it is truly cib? Using secret of mana again, if it has the Cartrage, box, manual, and cardboard holder but no map is it cib or no

Dexpends what your own interpretation is. COMPLETE, in its truest sense, would have EVERYTHING, including the cart baggie, extra pamphlets, dust sleeves, etc. For myself, I consider an item complete so long as it has all "item specific" contents. So for Secret of Mana I would need cart, box, manual, poster(s), reg. card? Player's guide offer? (Can't remember what all comes with mana) Or anything else that is included and is specific to that release (I don't care about the precautions pamphlets or anything else that is universal across snes releases). However, not having a poster and calling it complete is generally not an "accepted" alternative. Although, many people ignore registration cards and call it "complete", so depends how much of a completeionist you want to be!

Really depends Ive seen inserts for certain games go for 50-80$ + alone!! For a game like Mana sure it increases the value overall by 15$ or so, but again is very common and not worth the time. Some games do have large detailed manuals that would be well worth it but id consider to be over valued unless your a big RPG fan.
Its up to you what you'd like to collect I started as cart only and bought only rare boxed games when the opportunity came then finished the remaining carts i didn't have.
Boxes and inserts/manuals get very expensive and there isnt a solid price chart for some of the rarer games. So i wouldn't suggest someone starting off to dive that deep without doing extensive research. Best advice go snipe some good deals keep an eye for prices and after awhile you ll have a good idea what to spend $$ on. Get involved with some auctions of CIB rare games and you ll find how competitive things have become !

Is it frowned upon if you have the manual box and cart and no cardboard holder and you buy a repro cardboard holder? I just don't want to go about it the wrong way if I do sell one and someone think I'm ripping them off.

I came across this site that seems useful: http://www.rarityguide.com/...

I don't know how accurate the data is since I'm new to collecting and pricing.

Oh, and welcome aboard!

https://m.ebay.com/orderDetails?i...

I'm nervous this went cheap did I do really good or no?

That's not a link to the listing, but rather than the order (tied to your account). Thus, we can't view.
 

http://m.ebay.com/itm/RARE-SNES-E...

Apologies.

No board pics is a sign of a risky purchase, especially if the seller acknowledges it's a rare game. You should make a habit of asking for board pics on pricey (whatever your opinion is what qualifies as pricey) games if they are not already there. If it's super rare, they should also be providing a piece of paper in the picture that shows their username and the date.

As for price, it seems like it was an accurate one given the label damage - if this is a real copy.

Well I will know once I receive it. If it's not I'm assuming PayPal will help me out. Since he claims it's authentic.

Yeah it's just not worth the hassle if you can avoid it. Label does look legit to me but it's hard to tell with pics online sometimes

Word of advice: if you open it up and find that the board is a reproduction, don't tell ebay/paypal that you opened it. Never tell them that you opened it. Find another reason to assert it's fake.
 

Thanks for the heads up as I certainly would have.

Definitely a bold thing to start off a collection with. Welcome!

I think that's a pretty terrible deal.That copy seems to have significant wear on the box and wrap. You could get a mint opened copy with the wrap still on it for around $55-$80. No point paying TOP dollar for sealed copies if their damaged like that. I thought the whole point of paying A LOT of extra money for sealed copies was so you could get them mint. Newb collectors paying top doller for beat up copies is a big contributing factor to the sky rocketing prices. I suggest you only buy top condition copies if your going to pay top dollar. That's my 2 cents.

Actually the picture made it look a lot worse than it is. In person it's actually a decent copy.

I've picked up several games to get the collection going. I am planning to build a floating shelf to show them off as I pick up more. 

Pic is upside down for some reason.