Question: What recursion?

I  had to deal with a long number x =  521...773 that i wanted to break up into 3 digit segments. I converted x to a string and got y="521...773". Then I used String Tools to LengthSplit y and got a sequence z="521", ..."773". So far so good. Next I tried to extract the 3 digit segments and tried
convert(z[1],integer) but that led to

Error, (in anonymous procedure called from depends) too many levels of recursion

Very mysterious. The command convert("521",name)  gave me the symbol 521, not the number.
I eventually stumbled across parse("521") and that gave me what I wanted,namely the integer 521. I looked at the Help page for parse but decided I did not want to delve into that bit of arcane knowledge.

I also tried several times to write little procedures to strip off the double quotes but was unsuccessful.

I am sure there is a more obvious way to go about this. Any suggestions?

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