Today's OED antedating: "better than a poke in the eye (with a sharp stick)"

Better than a poke in the eye (with a sharp stick), slang, better than nothing ("poke," n.3, sec 1 (a), first use cited 1974): Book titled The Murderers, by Fredric Brown, 1961, ch x, p 125: "But my check had come. ... It would be thirty-seven bucks and some odd cents. I told him that that was better than a poke in the eye with a sharp stick ... ."