I'm actually both ways myself. I used to buy art from the old Princess Fine Arts when they had their own program. Now that they've gone to Park West, I won't touch them. I've been to a few of the auctions since they switched, but I felt that they were really skirting the edge of being unethical in how they were presenting things, including once where I felt they were intentionally trying to blur the line on whether something they were presenting was an original or a limited edition. On top of that, I feel the mix of artists has gone in a direction that I don't particularly enjoy myself (of course, that's something that's personal for everyone), and the prices have jumped significantly. (It was hard to compare directly, since a number of artists that I knew the prices on were no longer available, but I did find what I felt was a smaller, less interesting Duaiv limited edition they were offering, and I'd purchased one about a year before, and the price was significantly higher, and I honestly don't think it's because the value went up that much).
They do seem to have a lot of Kinkade these days. Personally, Kinkade isn't really something I personally care for (which gets back to the artist mix having changed), but (and please keep in mind I'm not trying to criticize anyone here with what I'm saying, because I do feel the only reason people should buy art is they like it), but a lot of the limited edition Kinkade stuff available these days the artist wasn't involved in producing the LE's, and they're not signed by the artist (since, well, it's tough for a dead guy to sign things
). Obviously Kinkade isn't the only artists that things like that happen with. I mean, heck, they were still printing Rembrandt images from his etchings up until pretty recently (and might still be? not entirely sure).
I just know that my own personal choice these days is I no longer buy art on a cruise ship. I just feel that my own observations and things I've read about how Park West operates makes me somewhat uncomfortable with purchasing from them. That said, I do feel that the time period when it was PFA introduced me to a number of artists that I found interesting, and I have a number of pieces from those times, both originals and limited editions that I'm quite happy with. But none of it was bought with the expectation that it would really gain any value, everything was bought because I liked the piece and was content with the price being asked for it. Given that I don't really plan on selling any of it, whether it's gained value or not is fairly irrelevant.