The coils are arranged as a Kettering ignition system. It works like this:
A coil consists of a metal core (iron or steel) with 2 separate sets of wiring wound around it. In our coils, the points-side wiring (primary side) has about 250 wraps (turns) of wire around it. Over that, there are about 3000 wraps of [thinner] wire that comprise the secondary (high voltage) side.
One side of the primary side wiring coil is connected to battery power. The other side is connected to the points. When the points close, the power passes through the primary, then the points, to ground. This current sets up a magnetic field, much like in an electromagnet, in that metal core. The secondary side wiring also 'feels' the magnetic power (called 'flux') as it builds up: it takes a short time to charge this up, which we call the "dwell" time.
When the points open the power is interrupted, which instantly cases a collapse of the magnetic field. This is a very sudden release of the energy that charged the core up: as it collapses it puts the electricity (electrons) back into the windings. The many, many turns of the sparkplug's side become a very high voltage (about 1.2 volts per coil turn of wire, around 7000 volts) and since this end is connected to the sparkplug, it jumps the plug's gap to ground. Out the other side of the coil, the fewer points-side (primary) windings also make a spike of voltage (about 400 volts in our coils) that must be soaked up by the condensor, or else it will arc across the points and start burning them up. When the points close again, this stored-up energy in the condensor gets bled back to ground through those points as the coil begins to charge up its magnetic field again.
That's a little oversimplification, but essentially how it works. When the points close, they 'charge' the coil: then when they open the coil discharges to make a sparkplug fire.
