I borrowed an old dwell meter (Craftsman 80's vintage, but looks new!) and put it on my car to measure dwell. BUT, I have a Pertronix electronic ignition. I'm wondering if it's even necessary or gives a proper reading?

Car has been hard to start and doesn't run 100% smoothly, so I'm exploring various causes. And having fun learning about all this.

The dwell reading was 59 degrees (at idle and at about 2,500, engine was not hot), by the way.

Dwell means nothing with electronic ignition.

Dwell angle is essentially used to compensate for wear of points. Does not apply to electronic ignition.

Dwell angle: is'nt that the angle/time the points are closed? Meaning the amount of energy the coil stores before it discharges through the spark?

I purchased one of the dwell meters from Harbor Freight the other day with the intention of checking the dwell angle before I adjusted timing

well long story short I hooked it up and the reading went from 90 to 0 when I touched the red wire to the positive side of the distributor but when I touched the red wire to the black wire on the distributor it read somewhere around 70 with the car at idle...not sure what all this means but the car is running fine. Maybe im getting different readings from what Pelican parts guide reports because I have a perma-tune system on mine

http://www.pelicanparts.com/techarticles/9.../914_timing.htm

Yes that is correct. With Electronic ignition the electronics work in a way that increase the dwell time giving the coil a longer time to saturate. It is able to do this an a way that points cannot.