Backfire would not kill the spark. Can you get a pic of the ignition?
Are you sure there is no spark? Pull the plugs out and ground them on the head, turn off the fuel and crack the ignition. See if the plug sparks. If the plugs spark, then that should not be an issue, should be a blue spark.
What you may want to do is run through a basic tune up procedure. Pull out the plugs, pul off the points cover, what you called the distributor cover. Remove the 8 valve cover caps. Get the timing marks to 1-4 T and check valves.
There is a trick for this. At 1-4T, you can check either both sides of 1 or 4 and the intake of or 2 or 3 and the exhaust of 2 or 3. (Cant remember which order off the top of my head). Set your intake to .004 and exhaust to .003. Manual says .003 and .002 but the added space helps the valve train last longer.
Rotate around to 1-4 and again and do the rest of the valves.
After that, rotate the crank back about 15 degrees and set the timing change tension.
After that, make sure you had fuel flow to the carbs. If the line is blocked, it could have gotten real lean and backfired and there may not be enough fuel to start.
Course, if you have no spark from the first test, try to contact the Previous owner and see if you can get a receipt or something or contact dyna if it is a dyna.
If the ignition is dead, you can either go back to points or get a new ignition. If you choose a new ignition, I suggest the pamco ignition. You can order it from a link we have here. From what I have heard, it is a pretty decent ignition.
The ride IS the adventure. The destination is just to get gas!