On July 6, 1932 the cost to mail a first-class letter increased from 2 to 3 cents. To meet the need for 3-cent stamps the U.S. Post Office issued a purple stamp reproduced from the Gilbert Stuart portrait of George Washington. It’s incredible to me to think how many copies of this stamp were eventually printed in panes of 100 (25,270,435,500) and as vending booklet panes of 6 (1,301,359,560). That’s over 26 billion—a number I find hard to fathom. 295,730,000 of those stamps were precancels.*
The design was derived from the red 2-cent stamp of the Washington Bicentennial Issue of 12 stamps that were issued on January 1. It was established policy to have our first president appear on stamps paying the first class letter postal rate, which on July 6 changed from 2 to 3 cents.
Shown above are three used copies of the 3-cent Washington that drew my attention because of the essential differences between them. The first stamp (left) bears the traditional wavy cancellation in common use at the time. I suspect there were billions cancelled this way. The second stamp (middle) is precanceled with CHICAGO ILL appearing on two lines with a horizontal black rule above and below the words. Precancels were issued to speed mail processing. The third stamp (right) has 
the same precancel marking but is also a perfin, a stamp with holes punched through it in a unique design by private business and governmental agencies to discourage theft and misuse. In this case the CC perfin design indicates use by the City of Chicago.
So there you have it, a very, very common stamp but here are three varieties that illustrate unique sides of its personality.
* Griffith, Gary, United States Stamps 1927-32, Linn’s Stamp News, 2001 (Thank you to the American Philatelic Research Library for providing print quantities noted above.)
