[Bill G]

Yes, the coil with the ignition switch turned off will show power to both sides of the coil. One may need to know how to read a schematic or understand basic electricity to know why. First, the ignition switch does not provide power to the coil. Instead, the coil has one side connected to the battery and the other side goes through the ignition switch to place the coil in series with the points on the ground side of the circuit. With no load or ground in line, the other side of the coil is also "hot". With the key on, the other side of the coil will show zero or near zero as long as the points are closed, or it will measure hot if the points happen to be open at that time. The location of the switch in the circuit, combined with the armored cable make for a pretty hard system to hot wire. Anything is possible, but in this case, difficult.

You could re-wire it from the stock wiring so that the ignition switch would switch the battery voltage to the coil and the other side of the coil to the points, and then you would have a hot-wire-able car. But, why do that if you don't need to..