The publication was founded in 1957. Each number is a set of colorful patterns on thick paper. With its help, you can build one or more models. Each model comes with instructions and a historical reference about the original.
From 1958 to 1987, the magazine was published once a month. The appearance of models of increased complexity led to the release of several numbers under one cover. Starting from 1989, “perestroika” began in Poland, as well as in other socialist countries, which had a negative impact on the publication of the magazine of paper models. Since 1989, the binding has been reduced to 4 numbers, the quality of the models has dropped significantly. An inconsistency appeared — many parts of the paper models did not fit together without careful fitting. Probably, this can be explained by the loosening of control over the material that is printed in a difficult era for the country. In 1990, the number of rooms formally returned to 12, but “built” and even “quadruple” rooms appeared. The complexity of developments increased, and at the same time, delays in issuing numbers began. Since 1992, the attention-grabbing magazine faced another trouble — the active development of similar publications with cardboard models.
Maly Modelarz published such greats as Andrzej Karpiński , the author of the book “Ship models made of cardboard” ( Polish. Modele kartonowe statków i okrętów ) , Leszek Komuda , Boguslaw Czyżinski – later one of founders of Model Card , Andrzej Samek , Bertold Kuszka , since 1983, Janusz Olesz – later the owner of the cardboard model magazine Model Card (Modelik) , as well as Bohdan Vasyak, notorious in the circles of “cardboarders” Bohdan Wasiak) . Mr. Vasyak gained fame as a kind of developer. His models are always unique by choice – they have not been published by anyone before, while the quality of the designs is, to put it mildly, low. Despite this, it was published in Maly Modelarz , and then in other publishing houses. In 1994, a new developer appeared – Pawel Mistewicz . His mid-complexity designs have come together remarkably well, and are still a great choice for a beginner modeler .