Colin:

It will be helpful if you could be more specific about which terminals on the ignition coil you are checking for voltage (there are three, two in the primary circuit, and one in the secondary), and the conditions of the checking, i.e., simply key on, or while cranking, etc. Both primary and secondary circuits have connections between the coil and the distributor! Edit: The pickup coil for the primary trigger is at the flywheel, rather than in the distributor, hence, no primary connection directly between coil and distributor.

What caused you to enter into this work? Was the car being driven when the engine stopped? Was some other work performed prior the the lack of sparks?