Extremely Rare Thew "Scoop Shovel" Found on Facebook (Video)

Historical construction equipment aficionados were doing double-takes when walking past George Marsh’s 1956 Lorain TL-25 crawler crane.

It wasn’t the 66-year-old crane itself, which is not so rare, but the attachment on the front of it that was catching attention at September’s Historical Construction Equipment Association’s annual convention in Bowling Green, Ohio.

(To watch George operate the Scoop Shovel, check out the video at the end of this story.)

The Scoop Shovel, as it was called, was made by the Thew Shovel Company, which built Lorain cranes. And as far as George or anyone else at the show was aware, it’s the only one known left to exist.

“I talked to a lot of people out at HCEA that knew a whole hell of a lot more than me, and none of them had ever seen one before,” he says.

George Marsh, right, and father Alan Marsh have amassed a collection of 100 vintage machines.George MarshGeorge and his father, Alan Marsh, first caught a glimpse of the Scoop Shovel about a year ago on Facebook, where it was being auctioned.