Funny that Bard, someone who looks to know so much is still clueless about some things.
But it is something that makes sense, he comes from a place and job where kijiel were commonplace, and by the cost of the tools, secondary material, and the specialized skills and knowledge necessary to work those pelts into truly usable goods coupled with how the Tersia for quite some years had problems dealing with sabotage and the like and in a way were just "scrapping" by, you see that him not knowing the true value of those pelts is completely plausible.
And Gordon... well, Gordon is Gordon XD, his reasons are that he simply is a noble who hasn't seen the world, he may have had a good education, but those weren't things he would need or even care to really know.