With Google having officially unveiled the LG Nexus 4 smartphone in an October 29 blog post, a recent Wired report has revealed that a prototype of the handset had inadvertently been left behind at a bar in September!

According to the Wired report, the then-unreleased Nexus 4 Android handset was found at the 500 Club in San Francisco's mission district, when Jamin "Sudsy" Barton was closing up the place after a somewhat slow evening last month.

Barton, who claims that nearly 20 phones are found in the bar every week, could not locate the owner of the handset because the device was locked and did not have a SIM card.

When Barton showed the handset to one of his regular customers from the tech industry, the customer instantly identified the device as the forthcoming Nexus 4, and reached out to Google's headquarters, for Barton.

Barton told Wired that Google sent its global investigations and intelligence manager to the bar for retrieving the handset from him, on September 20. He finally handed over the phone to the Google executive, but only after he had confirmed his identity.

As per the Wired report, Google offered Barton - who provided Nexus 4 pictures to Wired for a freelance fee - a free handset; and asked him to refrain from going to the media and speaking about the lost Nexus 4 till after the official announcement of the handset!