[steve s]

Yes, the coil is always connected to the battery. It's no more of a problem for the wires IN the coil than it is for the wire ON THE WAY to the coil, as long as there is no current flow. If the ignition key/switch is good, there will be no current flow and no possible harm UNLESS there's a short, which will show up more spectacularly elsewhere, or, at the very least, a dead battery!

CHeck for loose connections in the primary ignition circuit--the connections to the ammeter or the ammeter itself are frequent culprits. Putting a jumper wire (e.g., alligator clip leads) across the two junction box wing nuts will bypass the ammeter and permit an easy test without pulling the dash panel, ASSUMING the car has original wiring setup. Another notorious actor is a "pigtail" wire in the bottom of the distributor, which tends to short out to ground after rubbing against the distributor base a million times during spark advance/retardings.

Otherwise, condensers regularly go bad and less frequently coils do too. Typically, when either of these fail you get weak spark and crappy running rather than total absence of spark. Google or Search for test procedures or try another one.