A note on Thomas Kinkade paintings and on collecting art in general: only buy what you like and feel comfortable living with daily. I say this as an art historian who has advised clients in the past and who have been satisfied with their acquisitions.
NEVER by art - paintings, prints, or sculpture - solely for its investment value. Nothing is worse, even physical torture, than having something hideous in your home that you see every day and wish you’d never bought.
If you buy Thomas Kincade, look for his earliest work. It’s his best, but eventually it is in the eye of the beholder.
Maxfield Parrish worked as an illustrator and commercial artist most of his life. He was very successful and financially secure but never treated with the respect due a fine artist by critics. (Neither was Norman Rockwell). Today his paintings, the originals, used to create stunning scenes of New England for calendars fetch hefty amounts in auctions. One just never knows what will be worth big bucks in the future.
I used to know a guy who owned an art gallery on Union Square in San Francisco. He said that Kinkade was his biggest rival in picking up hot new artists work. Until, of course, Kinkade started turning out paintings by the truck load.
One fun bit from the gallery. One day, this scruffy, smelly bum came in to look around (in San Francisco you don’t turn anybody away). He came back the next day with several companions carrying suitcases. He said, “I’ll take everything on this wall, on this wall and on this wall!” Then his companions opened the suitcases, which were stuffed with hundred dollar bills.
It turned out that the scruffy bum was Jerry Garcia, and his Grateful Dead band roadies were carrying the cash. He bought over a million dollars of art that day.
Maxfield (more cobalt blue) Parish truly wish I had some of his original work. Just like the stuff, and he is underrated.