Steve,
The flywheel turns in the counter clockwise direction and if we want to increase timing advance we want the magnets on the flywheel to pass the laminations on the coil sooner for a given piston position in the stroke.
So, we move the flywheel counter clockwise to get them closer to the magnets.
Make sense?
That's why raising the coil position would move the contact to a later time and would retard the timing.
Yep Tim has got it right.