In reply to M0nkey:
Firstly I think it should be made clear that I don't think anyone posting here as yet knows yet what exactly has been sold or the attitude of the seller or purchaser. All we have are the auction Lot summaries.
When first I heard about the Lot(s) and posted this thread I was more interested in the generality of such things, as I want to see such records preserved electronically for the climbing community at large (open public access can be an issue though, for various reasons). I'd also like to to hear what other climbing groups publishing definitive guides intend to do with their similar old paper archives (feel free to email me direct if anyone wants to let me know anything but not directly on this thread).
I think legal entitlement is not always the same as it being a good idea morally. As an editor acting on behalf of an organisation my view is most climbers who write to you with information for a guidebook do so with you as a proxy for that organisation and it's usually obvious when a letter is directly to you. Selling the former would certainly be as a minimum morally wrong as they should be handed on to whomsoever takes over your role; the latter depends on the privacy issues of what was said.
It turns out subsequently that an additional problem in this case is Phil and Graham were actively trying to electronically archive some material from the same collection, if some of this has been sold it would be pretty low, but we don't know yet.
As for collectors, some are really exceptionally helpful to editors, but others less so and a few want items very much for themselves.