Material / Rare Material Trader Issue

I might be missing something here, but currently this makes no sense to me:

When I go to the Rare Material Trader to get a quote for 1 Steel Ingot, I get quoted, say, 130g. Currently I have 20 Steel Ingots, so, I thought, I'd go to the regular Material Trader and sell them in 2 groups of 10. When I ask the Material Trader for a quote for 10 Steel Ingots, the price I get is 300g.

300g for 10 Steel Ingots when the Rare Material Trader is offering 130g each? I know I can just sell them all to the Rare Trader if I want more cash, but surely these two guys should get together in their break and compare prices.

The way I see it, no-one is going to sell any rare materials to the regular Material Trader at these prices, so either a) remove the option because it's pointless, or b) make the traders a bit more competitive with each other.

As I said, I don't know if I'm missing something here but it seems like a bit of a pointless exercise. I'd rather save up my 20 Steel Ingots and sell them all to the trader who's offering the best price.

1- I think it's a matter of expertise... the "normal" material trader doesn't realize the true value of what you're selling... or has his own mark-up (allow this rp frivolity).

2- it's really lame that you have to sell things to the rare material trader 1 at a time. I know the price fluctuates, but certainly with 1000's of people online at once selling them 10 at a time couldn't really be exploited to get better prices.

To be honest I'm not that bothered about getting a great price for them; the prices are relatively fixed (give or take a little fluctuation here and there) so it's not about that. Anet might as well just get rid of the option to buy/sell 10 rare materials at a time from the regular Material Trader because his prices are so much worse than those of the Rare Material Trader.

Either that, or maybe give the option of buying/selling 10 rare materials at a time to the Rare Material Trader instead, because then the prices can be multiplied by ten, allowing you to buy/sell in bulk quickly and easily and for the right price.

This wasn't supposed to be an OMG PRICEZ SUK I WANT MORE CASH thread

This is for the "newer" players who find a lump of charcoal and get all warm and fuzzy

i think they did it on purpose, to keep the economy at a certain lvl. you see, for people who can be bothered to sell, say, 50 steel ingots one at a time to the rare trader, but then again there might be lazy players (like me sometimes) who just sell em to the normal guy cos it's quicker

sell one steel at a time to the rare trader, you'll get more that way. Same with fur and other rare materials. Thats how I do it.