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There is a resistance wire coming off your ignition switch which drops voltage to the coil for 2 purposes. One was to protect the points from arcing (the biggest reason) and two, was to keep the coil from overheating by design. The starter solenoid is designed to provided cranking voltage directly to the coil during start and when the key is released the resistor takes over. When you measure unloaded voltage it will look normal, when you load the circuit such as connecting the coil voltage drop occurs. If you still have points, they are probably closed when you are getting the voltage drop by hooking up the coil. If you have a pertronics ignition it grounds the coil until it senses distributor rotation which also gives you the drop (which is why you don't want to leave your key without it running. On mine the coil will overheat and it won't start till it cools down for about 10 minutes). In a shorter answer, the condition is normal. When you get it running charging voltage is higher and you will have a running voltage of 9 - 11 volts at the positive of the coil.
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