It does sound backward to me. I often get things reversed in memory, but I recall #1 being the switched (negative) end of the coil and #15 the battery supply (from the ignition switch) sometimes marked positive. Can't look it up at the moment. I never did understand why it should make that much difference except that the secondary winding was referenced to one end, but can't say I tried it.

Another post spoke of weak or no spark during cranking I suspect could be the missing function of the starter contacts designed to short past the ballast resistor. You could see if you have, say 10 volts at the big terminal on the starter while cranking and the same voltage at the brown wire (while cranking).

I can check later to see if I have a condenser mounted near the coil. If so, I believe it would be for radio interference suppression instead of for the spark.
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Art Benstein near Baltimore