That, aside from those legal issues concerning ownership, a collection as the Polaroid one does not necessarily has to be auctioned, can be seen with the case of the Agfa-Historama. This historic orientated collection made out of photos, papers, books and cameras was intented to be sold by Agfa just prior to the Agfa-Photo sale (seemingly a coincidence with the duration of a lease contract).
Whereas the camera collection was open to free sale, the photo collection had been designated a national heritage, which made it to be kept together and prohibited sale abroad.
In the end no free sale was done at all, but the Historama collection ended up in two public musea.