Folks 'round here all know about Blue Ridge China. "I used to work at the old Pottery," says Mildred Edwards. "I painted leaves at first and then I moved into more complicated patterns." Mildred later became one of the best of 500 hand painters at Southern Potteries which operated in Erwin, Tennessee from 1906 to 1957. Nestled in the Blue Ridge Mountains of upper East Tennessee, The Southern Potteries produced Blue Ridge China that is now sought after by collectors all over the world. Coal was shoveled by hand into 7 beehive-like kilns where more than 25,000 pieces of china each day emerged to be shipped to major department stores and businesses everywhere. Nearly 700 patterns were produced and now, even though the Southern Potteries closed its doors in 1957, versions of those old patterns are reintroduced by Piggybank Express in handpainted piggybanks.