Trouble with my ignition timing

Yesterday I spent the day trying to sort out my cars ign. timing issue, but it doesnt make sense to me.

At idle(800-900rpm) with the vac advance plugged it shows 32* then by 3000rpm it would jump to 40-42*.

At idle that's about as low as it will go and still run well. This seems strange considering I was told to set it much lower.

At this point I'm thinking two possibilities: 1. My "new" parts store dist. is set at an "advance" and moves only 10* to full advance? Or 2. The markings on my prof. Products balancer are not right.