Time is running out for the efforts to raise £3.3 million to buy the Staffordshire Hoard for two West Midlands museums.

The appeal launched on January 15 has only just topped £600,000 and only just over two months are left to raise the remaining £2.7 million.

The deadline to hit the target is April 17. Art Fund director Dr Stephen Deuchar said donations were coming in “pretty well” to get the Anglo-Saxon treasure, found near Brownhills, for Birmingham Museum and Art Gallery and the Potteries Museum and Art Gallery, Stoke-on-Trent.

“We have only been actively campaigning for a little over three weeks.

“We have got off to a good start but now need to go up a gear,” said Dr Deuchar.

He hopes the start of a new exhibition featuring about 100 gold and silver hoard items that starts at the Potteries Museum on Saturday will lead to renewed public enthusiasm.

The fund wants people to visit the website www.artfund.org/hdsdf to take part in an interactive game to uncover Anglo-Saxon treasures. “If we don’t it will be a great tragedy if the hoard is sold off on the open market and split up,” said Dr Deuchar.

The exhibition is at the Potteries Museum until March 7. Some items have never been seen in public.

Admission is free 10am-5pm Monday to Saturday and 2pm- 5pm on Sundays.

Appeal backing has come from historian David Starkey, Prime Minister Gordon Brown and actress Dame Judi Dench.

The £3.3 million finder’s fee for the hoard will be shared between Burntwood metal detectorist Terry Herbert and land owner farmer Fred Johnson.

Two billboard ads are alongside the M6 appealing for donations to keep the hoard here after Signature Outdoor donated five billboard spaces worth £65,000.