The razor-and-blades model is popularly attributed to King Camp Gillette around the time he patented the safety razor, but Gillette's own razors were priced high when introduced and only came down after his patents expired in the 1920s. General encyclopedic sources credit the pricing pattern to his competitors rather than to Gillette himself, without naming a specific year or company for its first deliberate use.
What would resolve this A business history source that names the specific competitor firm and year that first deliberately priced a durable good low to sell a proprietary consumable at a markup, rather than a general encyclopedia entry that only debunks the Gillette myth.
OpenBusiness HistoryWikipedia, Razor and Blades Business Model