Will 2018 bring Apple fans a follow-up to the company's $1,Tayuan000 flagship, the iPhone X, from last year? A newly glimpsed chunk of glass suggests it's possible.

A pair of images that surfaced on China's MacX forums show what appears to be an iPhone X-shaped pane of glass, notch and all. They've since been removed, but the message thread -- bearing the title "plus" -- still remains. SlashGear also grabbed the images themselves before they disappeared.

Let's be clear up front: There's no reason to believe any of this is legit. But the existence of the glass, which was supposedly produced as part of a trial run at a Vietnam-based LG facility, does line up with other rumors of an iPhone X Plus.

Currently, Samsung is Apple's source for OLED displays used in the iPhone X. Apple works with LG as well, but only for the LCD screens that lower-tier current-gen iPhones use.

That may change with the iPhone X Plus. Back in January, one of the earliest rumors pointing to an X follow-up hinged on a report that LG would be providing Apple's OLED displays. That would explain the origin of our newly surfaced photos.

Ming-Chi Kuo, one of the more reliable Apple analysts, predicted last year that the company would deliver three models of iPhone in 2018. Two, he said, would be iPhone X follow-ups with OLED displays: A "standard"-sized 5.8-inch model and a "Plus" 6.5-inch model.

Given Apple's usual product reveal schedule, we're not likely to see any official confirmation on new iPhone plans until September. But mass-producing cutting edge technology for wide release within one month of a product's announcement is a time-consuming task.

These images may or may not be real, but as more evidence piles up hinting at Apple's 2018 smartphone plans a clearer picture should start to form.