Regarding your story of the Farmington Hills, MI token. It is a good story for them, but a ho hum for the collector. This may AGAIN prove the value of having the right book on hand. Duane Feisel's book on Parking Tokens lists three varieties of these issues, all with the same wording. In the section:
PARKING TOKENS MANUFACTURERS STOCK

PTMS-3090 A 25mm Bronze 25¢
PTMS-3090 B 25mm Brass 25¢
PTMS 3090 C 22mm Brass 50¢

Federal APD (Automatic Parking Devices) manufactures coin or token activated gates for parking lots. They issued tokens is two sizes – 25mm (just over the size of a quarter) and 22mm (just over the size of a nickel. There are several varieties of the 25mm token.

These tokens are what are called “stock tokens” issued for use in parking gates equipped to collect tokens, usually to gain entrance to a parking lot but sometimes used for exit. These stock tokens were sold in quantity to businesses having gate-controlled parking lots who did not want to go to the expense of having custom made tokens manufactured.

These parking tokens and many, many others are catalogued in Feisel’s Catalogue of Parking Tokens of the World. The sixth edition of this catalog is available at a cost of $65 from Joseph V. Pernicano, 58 Sonia Lane, Broomall, PA 19008. After moving to California I passed along the job of cataloging parking tokens to Joe, while I have moved on to other token-related projects including writing catalogs of California saloon tokens, California encased coins, California US Bicentennial issues, and California Food Stamp Change Tokens.

A current project is the preparation of a catalog of unattributed maverick saloon tokens and a comprehensive index of United States saloon tokens to be published as an addendum to Saloon Tokens of the United States by Al Erickson, and available from him at a cost of $65 postpaid – Al Erickson, PO Box 99667, Lakewood, WA 98496.

Novi, Michigan was named for a stagecoach marker. In 19th Century Michigan, on Grand River Road, the principal road between the state's largest city, Detroit, and the state capital, Lansing, stagecoach stop number six was marked with a stone marker cut as "NO. VI". The period disappeared with time, and the wide spot in the road (as it was when I passed through there as a kid on the way out to Kent Lake with my family) became known as "NOVI." It is now a large bedroom suburb of Detroit.