The Beatles – Beatles For Sale

Everyone says the mono version of this record sounds bad (lifeless?) but I think it sounds really good. I compared it to a 1973 stereo (said to be the best pressing aside from an original) and, sure it doesn’t have the separation and the bass blends a bit with the rhythm guitar and the drums aren’t as easy to pick out but they are there. Lots of bass and everything is there. Not muddy at all. Maybe I got a magic mono issue.

Where can the "UK Tax Codes" "KT" or "MT" be found please?

My least favourite Beatles album. In an ideal world, they could've made two fantastic 7" EPs with four songs on each, ditched the covers and kept on the 'masterpiece' track LP-wise. But hey, they were poptastic at the time and a long way off from later perceptions of them being a high watermark in popular culture. Business is business and all that.
It's telling though that my sister as a child got A Hard Day's Night, Help and Rubber Soul on quarter-inch tape at successive Christmases....but not this one! So even the kids knew what to choose when there was a limit to what Santa could afford.

I just bought this copy in a flee market. I just can´t find it here at DC. It´s; Label:
Parlophone – PCS 3062, EMI Records – YEX 142
Format: Vinyl, LP, Album, Stereo, Gatefold
Much alike an Irish copy but only one EMI logo in the buttom. Both Parliphone and EMI in yellow. Made in Britain. The first part of the gatefold is missing. Any knows whitch copy this is?

I have a set of original stampers for this album from 1964. Can anyone tell me what they are worth? They do not appear to be worn.

Cool story on my copy of this pressing found at a yardsale in Ontario, Canada. Opened up the inner sleeve to find what appears to be an original receipt from John Stephen's men's clothing shop at 9 Carnaby St. London, UK with handwritten notation of Beatles for Sale LP purchased for 1 Pound Sterling. Amazing to think this LP crossed the ocean at some point and that receipt was in there 60 years later.

Recorded in only 7 days in a 5 weeks period of time, just after a long US tour and between UK dates, the ‘fourth by the four’ was produced at the very peak of Beatlemania, by an overworked but also more confident band. On one side they are unscrupulous in mirroring themselves as affirmed stars and playing with that, marketing themselves (from the album’s very title) and candidly adding celebrity status themes (the Lennon’s personal complaint about success “I’m a loser”; the Carl Perkins’ ode to idol chaser fans “Everybody’s trying to be my baby”; the awareness about the effort they have to keep putting in to feed their fans’ love: “Eight days a week is not enough to show I care”) and on the other they feel secure enough to mature their songwriting, delivering more grown up lyrics, to the point of placing three consecutive darker and resentful songs at the very beginning of the record (the adulterous stalker case of “No reply”, the confessional get-down-to-yourself in “I’m a loser”, the impossible love desire for the grieving girl in “Baby’s in black”). By the summer of 1964, prior to this album’s recordings, a fundamental artistic exchange had happened: Bob Dylan influences the Beatles to write more autobiographical tunes and the Beatles lead Dylan toward the rock based electrification of his sound. Lennon is the more prone to this development. Nevertheless is Paul to come up with two highlights of the album, in the shape of “Every little thing”, a stunning and powerful melody, panoramic wide and played on the juxtaposition of the uplifting lyrics and the sadder contemplative guitar passages, that much anticipates the power pop injection at the hands of The Kinks and The Who (just to think how the timpani use in the song foresees the thunderous drumming work by Keith Moon), but also “What you’re doing” which cannot have gone unnoticed to the North American emerging pop rock scene, specially to the Byrds. The album is infatuated with american music, ‘50s rock’n’roll and country and western, as the Beatles had finished the US tour just right before the recordings, and has a role in kickstarting the country rock genre.

Which version is better, Mono or Stereo? As it has been originally released as a stereo, Thanks!

My press is 1964
Gold PARLOPHONE PMC 1240
Side 1 XEX 503
Side 2 XEX 504
33 R.P.M
Uk MONO
THE GUARD M3DIA M4YEM

My copy has
Matrix / Runout (Stamped)
Side 1 - XEX 503-3N GL 3
Side 2 - XEX 503-4N GM 3
can anyone tell me what GL 3 and GM 3 stands for ?
Thanks.