I'd suggest calling the place in Denver as listed in my original message, for various reasons:

1. They have an 800 number
2. They do mail order
3. They were obviously smart enough to know what was in the product line so much so that they steered my original research-based request towards an evidently newer and probably more suitable product (the market for the 'steel' tires is the light delivery van)

We're becoming more and more a service based economy - why waste time and effort with businesses (like the NJ one mentioned) who don't have the initiative to know their product line and don't have the common sense to follow up on customer-supplied info?

-Blaine