Russian Celluloid

Celluloid animal figurines have been around since at least the 1930s. One of the most recognized and more common are those of Viscoloid of Leominster MA and others made in Japan. The ones I want to present to fellow collectors and readers are of the more unique figures, especially from a vintage company in Russia called OHK (Ohtinsky Chemical Factory). They tend to be on the larger scale similar to Safari Ltd Wonders of the Wild series. These are hollow hand painted celluloid that were primarily sculpted by a renowned animalier artist Boris Vorobyov who also did sculpting for Lomonosov of porcelain animal figures. The cellluloid figures are not only unique but in my opinion remarkable in simplicity while maintaining accuracy of the animal. I recently acquired this wolf figure. Among the many other figures of this line included are an Asian elephant, lion, polar bear, Russian brown bear, Bactrian camel, rooster, cockatoo, and probably others I have yet to find. These photos are of my OHK wolf, a photo ob Boris Vorobyov with some of the other animals in the series, and a group shot of 4 of the more unique hollow celluloid wild animal figures that have no particular markings but are well done - the 2 smaller ones being reportedly from Germany. I hope you enjoy these and consider OHK another valuable contribution to vintage anmal toy figures.

Hello junglejim,
thank you for your information and congratulation for your animals.
Are your animals marked?
In Germany we have an exhibition called "Zoo Mockba".
Here you found some more information. 
Zoo Mockba Boris Worobjew. 
And here some more animals made by Boris Worobjew (Picture Zoo Mockba).

Benno.

They look gorgeous

I had two dolls made from Celluid when I was a child.
The material was rather brittle, so these models are certainly great rarities

Beautiful models, I love the wolf!

Surely it is an important contribution. That wolf is quite impressive, it looks almost like a polar bear.
Interesting the word Mockba, It is not a transliteration but a direct replacement of the Cyrillic letters by Latin ones.

Thank You all and thank you Babdo for a beautiful photograph displaying these figures and the additional information. The OHK figures have a marking, but of the other four figures only the little tiger is marked and even looking at it with a jeweler's glass it is difficult for me to be sure of what it reads. I think it says Volka or something similar to that. I purchased the little tiger and rhinoceros from a seller in Germany. The larger hippopotamus and bison have no markings anywhere.

Babdo wrote:

Hello junglejim,
thank you for your information and congratulation for your animals.
Are your animals marked?
In Germany we have an exhibition called "Zoo Mockba".
Here you found some more information. 
Zoo Mockba Boris Worobjew. 
And here some more animals made by Boris Worobjew (Picture Zoo Mockba).

Benno.

I have seen that in Dresden, only a few figures are really interesting as naturally figures.

Extremly interesting stuff. To sad oftenonly common species.

Very interesting and beautiful models!

This celluloid wolf is splendid, I have near 20 animals in this material.

There are fragile and lovely.

junglejim wrote:

 These are hollow hand painted celluloid that were primarily sculpted by a renowned animalier artist Boris Vorobyov who also did sculpting for Lomonosov of porcelain animal figures.  
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these are such beautiful models! I love them, and I never knew this sculptor also did figures for Lomonosov. I have a quite a few beautiful porcelain animals from there. I really love the Russian style in animal figures, regardless of the material used - wood, plastic, porcelain!
thank you for sharing all this info! and your collection is very wonderful

Wonderful wolf, bears and indian elephant! Thank you for sharing such beauties junglejim!  

 In France we had celluloïd productions too (By Petitcollin for exemple), but they have bee forbidden rather soon because they were easily inflammable! :)