Abstract Details of how and why foraminiferal models were made by d’Orbigny, Reuss/Frič, Zittel, Pearcey, Chaffer (Flatters and Garnett), Brooks F. Ellis, Kane Scientific, Louis Kornicker, Zach Arnold, John Murray, Geoff Adams and Zheng Shouyi are described in chronological order. The most readily available examples have been mass produced by moulding from plaster of Paris but other materials, such as plastic, wax, glass, sand, granite, limestone, marble and sandstone, have also been used. Some have been distributed as sets commercially or as gifts while others are one-off creations. Most were made as teaching aids, some to illustrate early foraminiferal classification schemes and others intended as museum display objects. The research interest of each maker is reflected in their choice of modelled taxa and, as a result, these model sets viewed chronologically show some historical details about the study of Foraminifera.