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He moved the chains.
Football legend Tom Brady surprised a crowd of fans who flocked to his new Brooklyn collection shop Tuesday — including dozens of kids who skipped school for the chance to meet their idol.
The GOAT signed cards, footballs and jerseys before cutting the ribbon at the newest CardVault shop near the Barclays Center in Brooklyn, marking the latest expansion in his trading-card empire.
“I feel amazing because that’s probably once in a lifetime opportunity to ever meet Tom Brady and to get his signature and have it actually addressed to me,” Lucas Bonhomme, 13, told The Post, adding that he was first in line to get his New England Patriots jersey signed by the retired quarterback.
The Orange County seventh grader took the trip in to the city with both his parents, who let him skip out on class for the chance to meet Brady.
“My parents knew if I didn’t come, it would make me upset,” he said of Brady, who spent 23 seasons in the NFL with the Patriots and Tampa Bay Buccaneers before hanging up his cleats in 2023 as a member of the Tampa Bay Buccaneers.
Brady’s presence at the newest CardVault store wasn’t confirmed ahead of time, but even the potential that the seven-time Super Bowl champ would show up in the flesh was enough to draw a crowd.
Liam Athas, 10, his brother Alex, 12, and friend Ben Berger, 11, missed their entire morning of classes — and were willing to skip the rest of the day if it meant meeting their hero.
“I am so excited. I really wanted to be here,” said Liam, who lives near the card shop. “He’s good at football. He is confident in the playoffs, and that’s why he won so many times. He never gave up.”
Ben, a fifth-grader, agreed, saying that he admired Brady’s palpable confidence.
“I think he has all those rings because pretty much almost every Super Bowl he’s played, all the time he was confident. There’s not one time he wasn’t confident. If you go for the Super Bowl not confident — you’re going to lose,” Ben said.
Not all the super fans were school-skipping kids, however.
Cynthia Valdez, 61, braved the chilly weather to cross off her bucket-list wish to catch a pass from Brady — a request the three-time league MVP happily obliged.
“Tom Brady signed my football cards and both of my hats and on my bucket list was to catch a pass from Tom Brady and I did!” said Valdez, a Patriots fan since the 1980s.
“He’s a beautiful boy!”
The CardVault store is the second location in the Big Apple, usually the turf of one of Brady’s favorite punching bags — AFC East rivals the New York Jets — and the NFC’s New York Giants, who handed the quarterback two of his three Super Bowl losses.
The grand opening came just months after burglars stole nearly $10,000 in baseball and Pokémon cards from his SoHo shop.
The Yankees hat-wearing thief tricked the store’s staff by fudging with the tap-to-pay system to make it seem like his declined credit card transaction had actually gone through. The crook is still at large.
“Shoplifting happens. We deal with it, and we move on,” Chris Costa, co-founder of CardVault, told The Post, adding that the widely covered robbery was “a little bit blown out of proportion.”
“I think it was kind of like a minor little situation.”
Costa said the store has beefed up its security since the incident, though didn’t share what exact changes the new Brooklyn store might implement after the SoHo bust.
“We’re super, super proud and super confident in our team, as any retailer should be. We’ve got an amazing process, amazing controls around security and product security and inventory security and loss prevention, and all those things,” Costa said.
“We are excited to open a new store and serve new customers, and have an opportunity to engage with new collectors and bring CardVault by Tom Brady to Brooklyn, which we think is an amazing, amazing neighborhood, and an amazing customer base for us.”
English (US)