What do you mean by a "mesh".
Are you talking about glass doors and a curtain screen combination or glass doors that has wire mesh imbedded in it? Because if it is the latter, then I have not heard of that.

"Are you talking about glass doors and a curtain screen combination"

yes.

any advice

If you want quality stuff then purchase it from a local specialty fireplace shop. They most likely will come out, measure, order them and install them for you.

If you do NOT care about quality, then you can purchase them at your local "big box", such as Lowes, Home Depot, etc. Purchase from this place and you must install them yourself.

In this instance, you do get what you pay for.

as i said in the original post the local shops were not helpful... they wanted a sale, they did not want to give information.
they only wanted to sell the brand they carry, but could not explain why their brand over the others.

Did you ever figure out the answer to your questions? I have the same question many years later.