Court records signed by notable baseball stars have been placed in a bank vault to protect the valuable sports memorabilia, the St. Louis Circuit Court says.

Court officials have locked away court documents that featured the signatures of George Edward Rube Waddell of the former St. Louis Browns baseball team and noted St. Louis Cardinals pitcher Rogers Hornsby, the St. Louis (Mo.) Post-Dispatch said Monday.

The valuable signatures had previously been stored with countless other court documents, but came to court officials' attention when they were contacted by a sports memorabilia buyer.

The buyer had wanted to authenticate a copy of Waddell's signature by comparing it to the baseball icon's signature on 1909 court divorce papers, the Post-Dispatch said.

Court officials then recognized the potential value of documents signed by Waddell and Hornsby and preserved the items in a bank vault.

The newspaper said the two newly discovered sports memorabilia items will be stored along with documents from the historic Dred Scot court case in which a slave unsuccessfully sued for his freedom in 1856.

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