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Does a weapon made of alchemical silver or cold iron have to be masterwork?
I feel like I read that weapons made of special materials have to be masterwork, but cannot find the source. I know some materials require masterwork, ex: mithral or darkwood, but if it isn't explicitly called out in the entry, is it a requirement?
If it is not specifically called out as always counting as masterwork, then no. Making something out of a special material does not require or automatically make an item masterwork unless the special material specifically says so.
Of the core rules special materials, all require the item to be masterwork with the exception of cold iron and alchemical silver. Mithral, adamantine, darkwood, and dragonhide items are always masterwork.
Of the special materials added in Ultimate Equipment, blood crystal, Elysian bronze, griffon mane, living steel, viridium, whipwood, and wyroot are not automatically masterwork. Likewise, the primitive special materials (bone, bronze, gold, obsidian, and stone) are also not automatically masterwork.
Alchemical silver and cold iron weapons (non-masterwork) are even affordable, with a bit of smart budgeting, for 1st level characters to have as part of their starting equipment. Archers can start with a bow (30 gp or 75 gp, depending), 20 cold iron arrows (2 gp), and 2 vials of silver weapon blanch (to treat the 20 cold iron arrows; 10 gp); 42 gp or 87 gp to have your arrows penetrate DR/cold iron and DR/silver. I'm also fond of non-archers having an alchemical silver battle aspergillum (25 gp) and a cold iron dagger (4 gp) as secondary and tertiary melee weapons.