Just to clarify -- Materials are fine on props. You just need to use the Material Room to apply them. Creating MAT-poses is another matter; those won't work unless the prop has been parented to a figure. There is a difference between the two! Wings may have given you an okay UVmap to work with already. It may be you can apply different proceedural textures or simple tiling textures to the various materials zones of the sword and it will look fine for you purposes. Still, UV mapping is a skill that is good to have, and a proper UV map will give you ever-so-much more flexibility and general neatness in texturing. Steve Cox's UVmapper is still free. Do a quick google for it.