Office of Steam Forum for Model & Toy Steam Gas & Hot Air Engines

Very nice Jensen 10 you have there! I would agree with Randy that your engine is late 1930s. The only thing that looks out of place on it, is the cord. Once you get out of the very early ‘30s engines, there seems to be four very distinct types of cloth covered cords that Tom Jensen used. The first is a black Leviton cord with 5 gold stitches that was used up to about 1936 or so. Second was a black Belden cord with white stitches that form a spiral around it. This cord lasted roughly until WWII. Post war engines generally have a black and white stitched cord with a hard rubber plug. All previous cords would generally have a Bakelite plug. The last cloth cord style in the late 1940s is a black cord with two white stitches also forming a spiral around the cord, but it is different than the earlier Belden cord.
I feel your engine should have the Belden cord. I’ve never seen an original engine of that vintage with another style of cord. None of this is written in stone. These are just my observations after more than 25 years of collecting and owning well over 100 different Jensen engines.