Yeah, I guess part of the reason you get cheaper prices when ordering from an internet vendor rather than getting something from the lbs is that, in cases like this where the shop doesn't respond to this sort of e-mails (though has shipped promptly in the past), you take the risk of not getting quite what you want because of lack of service and lack of ability to physically touch/measure something yourself.

Eh, it's supposedly a new fork (though cheap and from taiwan and Sheldon says cheap, asian bikes are the only ones likely to be JIS, but all cheap forks are from Asia), so it's probably what I want, and, as I mentioned it's cheap, so I'll probably take that chance on it.

My only steel rule of any quality is SAE (though you'd have thought that the plant I worked at when I got it would have had to convert to metric to get their ISO 9001 or whatever certification, but what do I know), but I will have to make sure I get a handle on what I have and what I get. As a low tech person myself (I have to be the last person I know to resist a cell phone) I can see the benefits of calipers that don't require batteries. I need to stop cheaping out on my tools and getting good stuff.