Looking for a chance to collect a piece of (mobile) Apple history and have more money to spend than the worth of an iMac? Your opportunity has finally arrived as a recent eBay auction for a prototype of the original iPhone has surfaced. The lucky buyer not only gets the Beta hardware so early in its infancy but a second, malfunctioning iPhone (only made weeks apart) to tinker with.

Needles to say this prototype forgoes the final builds or even early builds of OS X mobile for a quickly cobbled Firmware meant only for testing purposes. According to the buyer, calling and most features work and the lack of typing out a quick SMS is unfortunately one of the many penalties for the Beta build running on this iPhone. The working iPhone curiously has a matte plastic screen and a serial number that indicates it was manufactured in the 46th week of 2006 (the iPhone was formally introduced during January 2007). The working unit carries an OS version of 03.06.01_G (the first shipping iPhones ran OS version 03.11.02_G). The nonfunctioning prototype on the other hand has a glass screen, slightly higher serial number but no identifiable OS version.

A short video demonstration of the beta Software running on the working prototype was uploaded to YouTube.

Via: Mac Rumors