Throwing my hands up on this ignition!

Old Mallory. Rock solid. If you got an MSD like control box, you can listen closely to the box when the distributor triggers it, or drag the white wire off a ground and you should hear a high pitched squeak out of the control box, that's the transistor triggering ~6 times and you can hear it. That would tell you if the control box is actually sending the coil the CD signals. Whats the resistance of the coil? I know it doesnt like race type coils with their extreme resistance values.